Orchard Robotics โฃSecures $22 โMillion to Bring AI-Powered visionโ to Specialtyโ Crop Farming
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Orchard Robotics, a startup โขdeveloping artificial intelligence-powered โฃcomputer vision for specialty crops, has raisedโ $22 million in a new funding round. Theโฃ investment was led by Insightโฃ Partners, with participation from returning investors General Catalyst and Contrary.Founded by Cornell โuniversity dropout and Thiel Fellow,โ Justin Wu, Orchard Robotics aims toโ modernize farm management by replacing manual โcrop sampling with data-driven insights.โ Despite the potential of computer visionโฃ in agriculture, Wu notes that even the largest U.S. farms currently rely on manual inspection for criticalโข operational decisions.
“If you don’t know what you’re growing in the field, you โdon’t know how much chemical to apply to it. Youโ don’t know how many workers to hire to harvest it. You โฃdon’t know what you can actually sell andโข market,” Wu explained.
Orchard’s system utilizes small, ultra-high-resolution cameras attached to tractors orโค other farm vehiclesโ to capture images of fruit โhealth as โthey move โขthrough fields.AI algorithms then analyze these images, assessing fruit size, color, and overall health. This data is uploaded to โOrchard’s cloud-based software, providing a centralized โrecord to inform decisions regarding fertilization, pruning, and thinning.Currently deployed in apple and grape farms across the country, Orchard Robotics has โrecently expanded its technology to include blueberries, cherries, almonds, pistachios, citrus, and strawberries.
The company operates in a โขgrowing market alongsideโ competitors like bloomfieldโ Robotics – recentlyโฃ acquired by Kubotaโ – as well as seed-stage startups โVivid Robotics and Green โขAtlas. while โคthe current โคmarket for fruit and vegetable dataโ is estimated at $1.5 billion, Wu envisions future AIโ advancements enabling autonomous decision-making, considerablyโฃ expanding Orchard’s product offerings.
Wu hopes to โฃmirror the growth trajectory of โpublic safetyโข startup Flock Safety,evolving from a data collection serviceโค to a comprehensive operating system for farm workflows. “our ambition is โขto be โคa lot more โthen just collecting data,” Wu saeid. “We want to collectโ the data, thenโฃ build anโข operating systemโ on top of the โdata, and then eventually own all the workflowsโ in the farm, and that’s going to have the potential to expand our market by quite a โbit.”