A new type of robotics might be one of the biggest breakthroughs yet for indoor farming.
What’s happening:
- Santa Cruz, California based robotics startup Neatleaf has raised $4M USD in a new funding round
- The financing round was led by AgFunder
The big idea:
- Neatleaf uses purpose built robotics to be able to monitor and detect plant health and potential yield in indoor agriculture
- Their flagship robotics product, the Neatleaf Spyder, attaches to cables that allows monitoring of the entire greenhouse and is capable of quickly detecting plants that are under stress
- The data captured by the Neatleaf Spyder is then instantly uploaded into their software which allows growers to scan plant health, average greenhouse temperatures and other conditions that may affect their total crop yield
- Neatleaf can also detect viruses and pests that are present in plants, enabling better insights into possible risks to crops
Going deeper:
- Indoor agriculture has faced challenges in reaching the scale needed to compete with traditional agriculture, in large part due to the complexities caused by temperature, humidity and the underlying technology needed to reach significant yields
- Vertical farming startups have recently started to emerge in surprising areas of the world, including one of the most ambitious projects ever in Dubai
