FarmWise

FarmWise is a precision agriculture company that aims to improve farmers’ yield and efficiency, allowing them to make precise decisions using robots. FarmWise offers an autonomous weeding robot, the “Titan FT-35”, which uses machine learning and computer vision to detect and pick weeds from fields, reducing or eliminating the need for chemical pesticides. The Titan can be used on a range of row crops including lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower, radicchio, and artichokes, and there were plans to include melons and tomatoes. The Titan can also be fit with different types of blades to weed crops of different sizes. The company announced in 2021 that it planned to release “Vulcan”, an AI-based tractor mounted weeder, which could weed up to six rows.

The company was still in its early stages and expected demand for its robots to increase as it improved associated technology and engineering.  Based on trials, FarmWise stated that its robots had efficiently weeded more than 10 million plants in the US as of September 2019. 

Farmwise provides its robots on a pay-per-acre basis. As of November 2021, Farmwise had 14 Titans and worked with 20 farmers across the Salinas, Santa Maria, and Yuma Valleys. As of February 2022, the company targeted vegetable growers in the Salinas Valley and Santa Maria region of California and expected to expand to the southern deserts. By May 2022, the company has offered its services to large vegetable farms in California and Arizona over 3 commercial seasons, and has provided 15,000 hours of service and obtained 450 million scanned images in its database.

In May 2022 , the company raised USD 45 million in a Series B funding round led by Fall Line Capital and Middleland Capital. The funds would support the launch of a new weeding machine and the development of the company’s technology to enable row crop weeding.