Small Robot Company

Based in the UK, Small Robot Company (SRC) focuses on providing per-plant farming via its small robots dubbed Tom, Dick, and Harry. Per-plant farming utilises data points on each plant and square metre of soil rather than considering the field as a whole. The company operates a Farming as a Service business model. The crop management service deploys robots that utilise artificial intelligence to monitor crop health, kill weeds without chemicals, and efficiently plant crops. The robot Tom delivers commercial weed mapping services to UK farms (covers 20 hectares per day) while Dick provides in-field demonstrations of non-chemical weeding capabilities (zero chemical use). Harry is still being brought up to Technology Readiness Level 4 (TRL 4). The company also operates an AI platform Wilma, which is equipped with algorithms facilitating crop management. The company claims that its robots reduce energy consumption by 90%. It also revealed that 110 farmers have formally expressed interest in its services with 60 having made deposits.

SRC commercialised Tom on 29 April 2021 with plans to operate on more than 100 farms by 2023. Trials conducted on the Tom robot indicate that it can yield around 20 tons of wheat per hectare—well beyond the UK farm average of 8.4 tonnes. The company expects to expand this coverage to around 62,000 hectares spanning the UK, North America, and South America in 2024. Dick is still in its prototype phase. In July 2023, the company announced its first commercial sale of Tom v4 to the National Robotarium, a center for robotics and AI, based at Heriot-Watt University's Edinburgh campus, Scotland, for scientific crop research.

The National Robotarium, in collaboration with the James Hutton Institute, will employ Small Robot Company's “Tom v4” AgriTech robot to scan agricultural fields. It will identify and record weeds and crops, and an AI algorithm will create a “treatment map” for farmers, guiding precise herbicide application.

In May 2023, SRC, announced that a leading venture capitalist investor has pulled out of the company's planned funding round and launched a crowdfunding #SaveSmall pledge campaign. As of May 9, 2023, SRC had received nearly GBP 1.03 million (~USD 1.3 million) in investment pledges.