Verdant Robotics raises $46.5M to advance robotic technology

Hayward, Calif.-based Verdant Robotics has announced the close of $46.5 million in Series A funding to scale its advanced robotic technology and accelerate the 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, according to a news release.

Verdant’s commercial robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) services a variety of specialty crops on thousands of acres, with orders pending for tens of thousands of additional acres, according to the release. 

The investment enables Verdant to rapidly scale its fleet while developing next-generation products that massively increase RaaS efficiency, the company said. Verdant’s multi-action, autonomous platform 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, according to the release.

“Increasingly, consumers are demanding food that meets the trifecta of good for me, for my community and for the planet,” Don Thompson, founder and CEO of Cleveland Avenue LLC, said in the release. “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.”

Verdant has sought 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, the release said. Verdant’s combination of automation, deep-learning, machine vision and submillimeter accuracy has the ability to solve multiple problems facing agriculture, the release said. 

“Verdant’s ultra-precision spraying platform is here today — adding new value while doing more with less,” Gabe Sibley, co-founder and CEO of Verdant Robotics, said in the release. “Thanks to the ongoing support from our investors, growers can thrive as we deploy this transformative technology together. At Verdant, we believe that an outsized opportunity requires an oversized effort that only robotics can deliver for agriculture.”

The release said the global agriculture autonomous robots market is projected to reach $10.5 billion in 2027, growing at a CAGR of 19% 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,” Sibley said in the release. “Growing abundant foods in sustainable ways is our generation’s biggest challenge and the founding principle behind Verdant Robotics.”