EcoRobotix has raised $11 million to further commercialise its weed killing tech that can identify and kill weeds with much better precision.
The Swiss company raised the money via Series B funding and although the company has been up and running since 2011, this new injection of cash means it’ll hopefully be able to launch the robots in a mch larger area soon.
The company received investment from Capagro and BASF Venture Capital, plus existing backers 4FO Ventures and private investors from Business Angels Switzerland and Investiere.
“After a successful Series A round of CHF 3 million in 2016, EcoRobotix is now entering a second phase of its existence, which is to grow into an international commercial company,” Aurélien Demaurex, CEO and co-founder of EcoRobotix said.
“In addition to our historic investment partners, we are glad to see the interest of new European investors such as Capagro and BASF Venture Capital, who will contribute significantly to achieving our market access objectives.”
EcoRobotix’s technology uses artificial intelligence to seek out the unwanted plants and can then just spray those, rather than the entire crop, which in traditional farming, exposes the environment to much higher levels of herbicides. It will also decrease the man hours spent finding and treating weeds, savng farmers significant time and cost.
“Robotics in agriculture represents a great opportunity to help farmers improve their profitability and their environmental impact,” Bénédicte Monpert, partner at Capagro said.
“We are very pleased to work with such a great and dedicated team, and to help ecoRobotix introduce its sustainable agriculture products on the market, starting in Europe.”
“We are delighted to be joined by these two renowned and reputable investors specialized in agritech,” existing investor 4FO ventures said in a statement. “This second round of financing is a success for ecoRobotics as well as for our early-stage fund.”
