- FarmWise, a company that builds autonomous farming robots, announced that it raised $14.5 million in Series A funding led by Calibrate Ventures
FarmWise — a company that builds autonomous farming robots — recently announced that it raised $14.5 million in Series A funding led by Calibrate Ventures. Agriculture company Wilbur Ellis, Xplorer Capital, and Alumni Ventures Group also joined the round. This round of funding will be used to grow the company’s robotic engineering and operation teams as well as boost R&D efforts on plant-level detection and actuation capabilities.
“Each day, one FarmWise robot can weed crops to feed a medium-sized city of approximately 400,000 inhabitants. We are now enhancing the scale and depth of our proprietary plant-detection technology to help growers with more of their processes and on more of their crops. Looking ahead, our robots will increasingly act as specialized doctors for crops, monitoring individual health and adjusting targeted interventions according to a crop’s individual needs,” said FarmWise co-founder and CEO Sébastien Boyer.
These tools are essential as farmers globally are in need of eco-friendly processes that address the rising demand for organic produce and increasing regulatory initiatives for more sustainable agriculture. And FarmWise’s autonomous and AI-enabled robots are designed to solve farmers’ most pressing challenges by performing a variety of farming functions starting with weeding and providing personalized care to every plant they touch.
“The FarmWise robot is a great field solution we can rely on to tackle our critical challenges. It is very exciting to see the progress that has been made over the months,” added Alain Pincot, the owner of Bonipak and an early customer of FarmWise.
FarmWise uses machine learning models, computer vision, and high-precision mechanical tools to build sophisticated robots — which cleanly pick weeds from fields thus leaving crops with the best opportunity to thrive while eliminating harmful chemical inputs. And to date, FarmWise’s robots have efficiently removed weeds from more than 10 million plants.
“We are thrilled to support FarmWise, which has managed to bring a radical idea from concept to commercialization in under three years. This is a testament to their uniquely talented team, problem solving capabilities and deep understanding of their customer and market. FarmWise is poised to fundamentally disrupt farming processes and we are excited to play a role in their future,” explained Jason Schoettler, the co-founder of Calibrate Ventures. Schoettler is joining FarmWise’s Board of Directors.
