Muddy Machines, an agri-tech company that helps automate crop harvesting, has announced a new round of seed funding of £1.5m to help spearhead its Sprout robots.
The tech allows farmers to precision harvest crops like asparagus, with the Sprout robot able to drive through fields harvesting accurately for up to 16 hours a day with no breaks.
The new round of funding will be used to build a small herd of Sprout robots for the 2023 asparagus harvest season, while generating initial revenues.
Production is also planned for the next generation of lightweight, battery-powered Sprout robots, Muddy Machines said.
This latest round of funding was led by Regenerate Ventures, which specialises in investing in technologies that help farmers produce food with less impact on the environment.
“We were impressed by Muddy Machine’s vision and the speed of technical development,” said Paul Rous, managing director at Regenerate Ventures.
“This was a company founded in the midst of the first lockdown. Within two years they had a robot asparagus harvester built and commercially tested.”
Florian Richter, co-founder of Muddy Machines, said raising money for agri-tech and hardware businesses was #a challenge at the best of times'.
"We are extremely proud to have secured this funding in the current investment climate. We are now focused on creating a meaningful amount of harvest capacity for our customers.”
It comes as a shortage of workers is creating a crisis for many farmers, with the House of Commons environment, food and rural affairs select committee recently warning that crops are being left to rot.
The number of vacancies is estimated to be 500,000 out of 4.1 million roles. Its recent paper on labour shortages in the food and farming sector called for more investment in technology to supplement labour.
“The situation is desperate,“ said John Chinn of Cobrey Farms, the UK’s largest growers of asparagus, “It’s not about cutting costs of labour, but our inability to find it.
"We have a 12-week season and this technology is vital if we are to harvest the crop.”
Muddy Machines developed its Sprout robot through trials this year on Chinn’s land. He said the Sprout machine was 'very impressive'.
"It takes itself up and down the rows of asparagus and harvests the spears, putting them in a tray without causing any damage.”
