Tag Archives: Muddy Machines

Agtech startup Muddy Machines Secures €1.8M Seed Funding

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Muddy-Machines-Sprout-Harvest-RobotAgtech startup Muddy Machines,  a StartLife alumn, today announced a new round of series seed funding of 1.8M euro. The new funding will allow the company to enhance the development of its harvesting robots that support zero emissions and solve labor issues in the agriculture industry.

The funding round was led by Regenerate Ventures with participation from Ponderosa Ventures, Jude Gomilla and Thrive/SVG Ventures and numerous others. “We were impressed by Muddy Machine’s vision and speed of technical development.”, says Paul Rous, MD at Regenerate Ventures. “Fixing labor issues in farming is essential for ensuring a sustainable domestic food supply in developed countries and reducing food miles.”, added Evi Steyer, MD at Ponderosa Ventures.

Florian Richter, CEO and co-founder at Muddy Machines, stipulates that raising money for agtech and hardware businesses is a challenge at the best of times. “We are extremely proud to have secured this fund raise in the current investment climate. We will now focus on creating a meaningful amount of harvest capacity for our customers.” The situation is desperate.“, said John Chinn of Cobrey Farms, the largest growers of asparagus in the United Kingdom.

Road ahead

This new funding will be used to strengthen the company’s engineering team and build  sufficient runway while demonstrating product market fit. Specifically, the areas that the company will focus on are:

  1. Building a small herd of its Sprout robots for the 2023 asparagus harvest season and generating initial revenues,
  2. Continuing with the development of new crop harvest capabilities and
  3. Developing a roadmap for scaling production of Sprout robots.

Muddy Machines Demonstrates Green Asparagus Harvesting Robot

About Muddy Machines

Muddy Machines was founded in 2020 by Christopher Chavasse and Florian Richter with a vision to sustainably solve labor issues in farming with robots. They developed a robotic platform that is capable of deploying a variety of harvest tools in specialty field corps. In Fall 2021, they took part in the StartLife Accelerate program. The company has won nearly €3M in grant funding.

 

p.s. Stay up to date with the latest news about and for agrifood startups, scale-ups and more via StartLife’s Linkedin or Twitter account or via the StartLife newsletter (8x a year).

Muddy Machines Demonstrates Green Asparagus Harvesting Robot

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Muddy Machines - Green Asparagus Harvesting Robot

Today, Muddy Machines, a UK agtech startup, announced that they have successfully developed a prototype robotic harvester for green asparagus, which they’ve named “Sprout”. Working closely with Cobrey Farms, the largest asparagus grower in the UK, Muddy Machines company has spent the last year developing and testing their machine on-farm.

Farms require a high volume of seasonal workers for a variety of tasks, primarily for weeding and harvesting. Asparagus is one of the most labor intensive crops as the harvesting occurs daily throughout the 12 week season. Picking asparagus is among the hardest and most backache-causing activities in farming, make it also hard to find workers to do the harvesting. Although green asparagus is a relatively small volume crop, Muddy Machines believes that it is most suited for robotic harvesting and is an excellent starting point before developing harvesters for more challenging crops.

Intelligent harvesting robot

That Sprout is a smart robot shows from the moment it leaves the farmer’s shed. The robot finds its way to the asparagus fields fully autonomously. Once arrived at the harvest field, it uses the latest in deep learning technology to detect and delicately pick asparagus spears according to grower’s specifications. The robot only picks mature spears, works in weeds and can even detect and harvest spears that are crooked, curved or malformed. The robot is lightweight and fully electric, avoiding damaging soil compaction and enabling a green, sustainable and resilient future for agriculture. To top it all off, the robot doesn’t experience any back pains.

Seeking additional funding

Founders-Muddy-Machines-Florian-and-Chris

Muddy Machines was founded by Florian Richter (left) and Christopher Chavasse (right) amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and the urgent request from growers to find a solution to their labor supply challenges. The company is backed by various venture funds, business angels and has won several Innovate UK grants. The startup is now seeking additional funding to bring an initial batch of robots to market in 2022.

Florian and Christopher currently take part in the fall 2021 edition of StartLife Accelerate. If you like to view Muddy Machines’ live pitch, you can register for StartLife’s (virtual) Graduation Day, on 9 December 2022.

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p.s. Stay up to date with the latest news about and for agrifood startups, scale-ups and more via StartLife’s Linkedin or Twitter account or via the StartLife newsletter (8x a year).