www.agtechdaily.com
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability
Contact
ABOUT US
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability
No Result
View All Result
www.agtechdaily.com
No Result
View All Result
Home Technology

Traptic acquired by Bowery Farming: The Lowdown

Admin by Admin
February 25, 2022
Reading Time:5min read
0
Traptic acquired by Bowery Farming: The Lowdown
Buy JNews
ADVERTISEMENT


Disclosure: AFN’s parent company, AgFunder, is an investor in Root AI and Tevel.

RELATED POSTS

British scientists grow a pork steak in a LABORATORY that looks and smells just like real meat

Saudi’s PIF, AeroFarms sign JV pact to build indoor vertical farms in MENA region

Warren Co. Community College ag curriculum to use drone technology – American Farm Publications


Last week, New York vertical farming company Bowery announced that it had acquired Mountain View, California-based ag robotics startup Traptic for an undisclosed sum.

  • Founded in 2016, Traptic has developed “giant farming robots” that use a combination of AI, computer vision, and robotics technologies to harvest delicate crops.
  • The robots were originally built for use in open-field settings; Bowery will be “the first indoor farming company to use Traptic technology,” it said in a press release.
  • It added that Traptic’s tech will “accelerate the commercialization of [Bowery’s] fruiting and vine crops,” including strawberries in particular.
  • Traptic’s team will join Bowery, and its co-founder and CEO Lewis Anderson will become the vertical farming firm’s senior director of robotics solutions – reporting to vice president of robotics and automation, Justin Frankert.
  • Collaborative Fund, Homebrew Ventures, and K9 Ventures are among the investors to have previously backed Traptic.

Here, AFN breaks down what the deal means for Bowery – and the broader indoor ag space.

On background:

Bowery claims to be the largest vertical farming company in the US. Its leafy greens are stocked by “major e-commerce platforms and more than 800 grocery stores” — mainly on the East Coast — including Acme, Amazon Fresh, Giant Food, Safeway, Wakefern, Walmart, Weis, and Whole Foods.

Image credit: Bowery

It was reportedly valued at $2.3 billion following its $300 million Series C raise in May 2021, which was said to be the largest-ever funding round for an indoor farming company at the time (San Francisco-based competitor Plenty appears to have smashed that record when it raised $400 million for its Series E round last month.)

Following a further $150 million fundraise in the form of a credit facility last month, Bowery is aiming to expand its product range beyond leafy greens to include strawberries, tomatoes, and other “delicate” crops. The acquisition of Traptic is specifically aligned with this strategy.

Why it matters:

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) makes use of various technologies to create optimal growing conditions and maximize yields.

  • Robots may be preferred to human laborers as they can operate in the much tighter spaces associated with vertical farms, at all times of day, are generally more consistent, and come with a lower contamination risk (many CEA setups try to minimize the presence of foreign microbes and other contaminants in an effort to preserve plant health and reduce reliance on chemical inputs.)
  • They also overcome the challenge of sourcing qualified labor, which is in short supply across the agriculture sector.

CEA operations may develop some of their tech in-house (for its part, Bowery has built its own automation and farm management platform, BoweryOS, which it describes as “the central nervous system of the business.”) For other solutions, they can turn to M&A in order to bring in the tech they need – as is the case with Traptic.

Another notable example of the latter is greenhouse operator AppHarvest‘s April 2021 acquisition of Root AI, a builder of harvesting robots.

However, Root AI’s robots were originally designed to work indoors; Traptic’s have been built for open field harvesting.

But the attraction of Traptic would seem to be more about specific parts of its technology, rather than the finished article that has been demoed.

Traptic field robot
One of Traptic’s strawberry-picking robots in the field. Image credit: Traptic

Speaking to AFN, Bowery chief technology officer Injong Rhee highlighted the dexterity and precision of Traptic’s robots, which are enabled by their heightened capabilities in “3D localization and pathing.”

“Their robot arms are kind of off-the-shelf commodity arms. But they customized them, adding 3D cameras and gripper tech which allows them to pick strawberries without damaging fruits and leaves,” he explained.

“This has a lot of applications; it’s not just for picking berries,” he added. “For a lot of fruiting crops, it also can be used to pollinate strawberries for instance [as it can] identify flowers easily.”

The bigger picture:

Several commentators have suggested that CEA has entered a ‘trough of disillusionment,’ with many of the sector’s most well-capitalized players yet to make a significant dent on food supplies despite a decade or more of substantial funding from VCs and, more recently, public market investors.

Since it went public by SPAC merger one year ago, AppHarvest’s performance has been underwhelming; while US vertical farm operator AeroFarms and SPAC Spring Valley cancelled their $1.2 billion merger in October, deeming it “not in the best interests of our shareholders.”

The point has been made that indoor ag companies are trying to succeed at several very different things at once — crop yield optimization, product distribution, and tech development — each requiring different expertise and strategies.

M&A can offer a more expeditious route to building capabilities in some of these areas, while allowing the business to focus existing internal resources on the others.

By the numbers:

In 2020 — the most recent year for which AgFunder has complete data — venture funding into farm robotics startups saw a significant boost.

  • In total, $212 million was invested in the Farm Robotics, Mechanization & Equipment category, representing 15% growth over 2019. The category’s median deal size also grew by 22% – indicative that bigger checks were being cut as several startups matured into later-stage companies.
  • Some of the biggest VC deals in the category in 2020 included Israeli fruit-picking drone startup Tevel‘s $20 million raise; and the $16 million Series A round for France’s Naïo Technologies, which builds weeding robots.
  • Bowery itself secured H1 2021’s biggest VC deal in the Novel Farming Systems category, which includes CEA. As mentioned above, it raised $300 million from investors including Fidelity, Gaingels, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, Temasek, and Google affiliate GV in May.



Source link

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
Admin

Admin

Related Posts

Technology

British scientists grow a pork steak in a LABORATORY that looks and smells just like real meat

February 2, 2023
Technology

Saudi’s PIF, AeroFarms sign JV pact to build indoor vertical farms in MENA region

February 1, 2023
Technology

Warren Co. Community College ag curriculum to use drone technology – American Farm Publications

February 1, 2023
Technology

Prof Moni Shares His Journey of Strengthening India’s Agricultural Informatics & E-Governance at KJ Chaupal

February 1, 2023
Technology

Letters: Added context | Farmworker conditions

February 1, 2023
Technology

Belize seeking to revive multi-million dollar shrimp industry

February 1, 2023
Next Post
Can Jeff Bezos' billions solve all of seafood's problems? | IntraFish

Can Jeff Bezos' billions solve all of seafood's problems? | IntraFish

At Mattapan farm, Mayor Wu announces new urban agriculture office

At Mattapan farm, Mayor Wu announces new urban agriculture office

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest News

Asian Catholics urged to tackle deforestation before it’s too late

June 25, 2022

Eating insects can be good for the planet. Europeans should eat more of them

September 14, 2022

Joint Statement on Food Security

December 19, 2022

Most Popular

  • Agricultural E-Commerce Boosts Incomes For Cherry farmers in Shandong

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Seeds of Discord: Farmers Accused of Fraud in Dicamba Dispute | Arkansas Business News

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Farm Credit Administration tours the Midwest – Agweek

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • 12 Biggest Agriculture Companies in the World

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • How Technology Is Changing Agriculture

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
www.agtechdaily.com

AgTech Daily provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping the agricultural and food technology industry

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Announcements
  • Food
  • Others
  • Sustainability
  • Technology

Quick Links

  • Home
  • About us

© 2022 - All Right Reserved. www.agtechdaily.com.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability

© 2022 - All Right Reserved. www.agtechdaily.com.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
%d bloggers like this: