Source: Verdant Robotics news release
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Verdant Robotics announced the close of a $46.5 million Series A funding to scale its advanced robotic technology and accelerate broad adoption of its regenerative and precision ag solutions.
Lead investor Cleveland Avenue was joined by DCVC Bio, Future Ventures, SeaX Ventures and all existing investors, including Autotech Ventures, Cavallo Ventures, and AgFunder, making the series one of the largest investments in ag robotics to date.
Verdant’s commercial Robotics-As-A-Service (RaaS) is in high demand, actively servicing a wide variety of specialty crops on thousands of acres with orders pending for tens of thousands of additional acres. This investment enables Verdant to rapidly scale its fleet while developing next generation products that massively increase RaaS efficiency.
Verdant’s multi-action, autonomous platform is the only ag robot in the U.S. market that can simultaneously weed, fertilize, and treat plants for pests and diseases – all while collecting data on each plant allowing farmers to make key decisions in real time.
“Increasingly, consumers are demanding food that meets the trifecta of good for me, for my community and for the planet,” said Don Thompson, Founder and CEO of Cleveland Avenue, LLC. “Verdant offers next-level precision that growers – and our global food supply – need to meet these demands, not only in the next 20 years but in the next five.”
Robot-As-A-Service expands access, reduces technology burden on growers
From its inception, Verdant’s mission has been to work side-by-side with farmers to solve their biggest future challenge – a shortage of farm labor – all while ensuring its robotic solution enables more growers to access regenerative and precision practices supporting soil health, water conservation, carbon sequestration and nutrient-dense crops. Verdant’s combination of automation, deep-learning, machine vision and sub-millimeter accuracy designed by a world-class team of roboticists has garnered industry-wide attention for its ability to solve multiple problems facing agriculture.
“Verdant’s ultra-precision spraying platform is here today – adding new value while doing more with less. Thanks to the ongoing support from our investors, growers can thrive as we deploy this transformative technology together,” said Gabe Sibley, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Verdant Robotics. “At Verdant, we believe that an outsized opportunity requires an oversized effort that only robotics can deliver for agriculture.”
The global agriculture autonomous robots market is projected to reach $10.5 billion in 2027, growing at a CAGR of 19 percent during the forecast period 2022-2027; driven by the growing need for precision, digital, and smart agriculture practices to meet food and sustainability demands.
“Autonomous vehicles and dancing robots may get headlines, but there really is no more impactful area for robotics, automation, and machine learning to be applied than agriculture. Growing abundant foods in sustainable ways is our generation’s biggest challenge and the founding principle behind Verdant Robotics,” said Sibley.
About Verdant Robotics
Together with growers, we are building sustainable, high-fidelity farming: spatially, temporally, and physically working the farm at a precision, accuracy, frequency and scale never before possible. At Verdant we believe environmentally conscientious robotic farming is the future of agriculture. Our goal is to transform how food is grown while improving the lives of farmers, workers and rural communities. By digitizing the farm at sub-millimeter scale, indexing it, and taking actions that unlock new value, we are providing our customers with superhuman farming tools. To learn more, visit www.VerdantRobotics.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
About Cleveland Avenue, LLC
Founded by Don Thompson, the former President and CEO of McDonald’s Corporation, Cleveland Avenue is a Chicago-based venture capital firm that invests in lifestyle consumer brands and technology companies that positively disrupt large and growing markets. Learn more about Cleveland Avenue at www.clevelandavenue.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
