Mentioned:
Robotics technology is set to disrupt many aspects of the future. And eliminating crops from large scale farms might be next.
What’s happening:
- Agricultural robotics startup Carbon Robotics has raised $70M USD in a new Series D financing round
- The round was led by venture capital fund BOND, with participation from Nvidia’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) venture arm and Anthos Capital
The big idea:
- Carbon Robotics has developed an artificial intelligence powered robotics technology that uses precision lasers to eliminate weeds from large agricultural properties
- Farm owners can simply install Carbon Robotics’s technology onto operational tractors and then control what areas of their farm they want to remove weeds from through a software platform
Why it matters:
- Nvidia continues to be on the leading edge of technology breakthroughs in robotics and also powers the computer vision aspect of Carbon Robotic’s technology through their GPUs
By the numbers:
- Carbon Robotics has raised $157M USD in venture capital funding since inception
- Their technology is capable of eliminating 5,000 weeds per minute and processing nearly 5M high resolution images every hour
Going deeper:
- Carbon Robotics currently has existing partnerships with farm owners in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia
The intrigue:
- Using robotics for agricultural purposes is not an entirely new concept, with the venture capital arm of Chipotle (NYSE: CMG) previously making a strategic investment into crop planting startup Greenfield Robotics
