Crux: Australian startup SwarmFarm has developed agricultural robots and an operating system to empower farmers, and transform farming systems, to achieve greater sustainability and productivity.
Australia-based startup SwarmFarm Robotics has locked in US$8.2 million ($12 million AUD) in a Series A funding round to develop autonomous farming solutions.
SwarmFarm CEO Andrew Bate, who co-founded the company with his wife Jocie Bate, says there is enormous demand for autonomy in agriculture. “The current equipment providers believe that farmers just want to be plucked from the cab or replaced by robotic arms. We believe that farmers want more. They want a technology ecosystem built to address the issues in their locality, a farm-centric system that leaves the lowest possible footprint on their fields, helping them do more with less. They want Integrated Autonomy, so that’s what we’re building” said Andrew Bate.
Empowering farmers: SwarmFarm is an Australian agricultural robotics company, leading the development of a new operating system for agriculture that is set to revolutionize food production.
They aim to provide farmers with driverless technology, and specialty robotics solutions with an open platform. They call it integrated autonomy. “While many companies are making driverless tractors and developing niche robotics solutions in agriculture today”, Bate says that his agritech startup aspires to combine the robot and the application within “a framework that will allow farmers to customize their equipment for their needs and allow developers to bring their innovations to life much more rapidly.”
Investors: The company’s Series A funding round was led by Emmertech, an AgTech fund from Conexus Venture Capital based in Canada. The funding also saw investment from Tribe Global Ventures and Access Capital and SwarmFarm’s existing investors, Tenacious Ventures, and GrainInnovate.
“We met with several farmers who were putting upwards of 3,000 hours a year on their SwarmBot, often leaving them out in the fields for over 24 hours at a time. We believe there’s a future where SwarmBots can be found on farms across North America and worldwide” said Sean O’Connor, Managing Director of Emmertech. The investors admired the team’s farmer-centric approach and the successes of their robots.
SwarmFarm transforming farming
Born on the Bate’s family farm in rural Queensland, SwarmFarm aspires to create better farming systems and unlock the promise of autonomous agriculture. The first SwarmBot was completed in 2014 and the world’s first autonomous, precision spray equipment, was developed in 2015. The company began commercially delivering SwarmBots directly to farmers in 2018.
SwarmFarm strives to solve a complex problem faced by farmers around the world: How to grow better crops and the optimal amount of food without excessive use of chemicals or larger equipment?
The team saw a future where developers could create specialized tools that could be attached to swarms of small, agile, autonomous robot platforms that create new farming practices through facilitating collaboration between farmers and technologists – laying the groundwork for the SwarmConnect product. Their unique approach to integrated autonomy aims to bring more productivity and sustainability to agriculture.
“Our machines are empowering farmers with new technology, so they can deploy new farming methods and field practices … Our robots are transforming farming systems from the ground up” according to the company.” Bate insists: “We’re not seeking to automate agriculture. At SwarmFarm we’re creating new farming systems from the soil up”.