Brief: SwarmFarm lands $8.3m for new forms of autonomous farming
Summary
SwarmFarm will use the funds to further develop its autonomous farming hardware-software platform.There is enormous demand for autonomy in agriculture, but today, most solutions unlock minimal potential, SwarmFarm CEO Andrew Bate said in a statement. Acute labor shortages across the industry are a key driver in this demand.While many companies are making driverless tractors and developing niche robotics solutions in agriculture today, we believe that there is a third category of autonomy that combines the robot and the application within a development framework that will allow farmers to customize their equipment for their needs and allow developers to bring their innovations to life much more rapidly.SwarmFarms answer to this is a platform combining its autonomous SwarmBot vehicles with SwarmConnect, its operating system network that opens up the platform. On a higher level, SwarmFarms platform is also about re-imagining agricultural processes as more technology emerges.With their background in farming, the team at SwarmFarm has been able to see around some of the corners on the road to autonomy and anticipate the needs of the growers they serve, Sarah Nolet, co-founder and managing partner at Tenacious Ventures, said in a statement.SwarmFarm currently serves farmers in Australia. It works with several different farm equipment developers, including WEED-IT, Bilberry, Weedseeker, Rasmussen Brothers Engineering and several others.The companys latest fundraise comes as farmers face both increased labor shortages as well as pressure to adopt more earth-friendly practices and products. Many see autonomy as the means of solving both issues.Last year, SwarmFarm deployed SwarmBots to over 1.3 million commercial acres.