A merger between two agricultural technology companies — one from Carroll County and the other from Iowa — may help bring self-driving tractors to farmers across the country.
LSA Autonomy in Finksburg and Redshield Electronics disclosed the merger to form MACH on Dec. 13. The two companies talked about merging for over a year. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
MACH, a 17-person company, will work to convert tractors and other farm equipment into self-driving vehicles for farmers. The chemicals involved in farm work, such as fertilizers and pesticides, can be toxic to humans, making it difficult for farmers to find workers, MACH Director of Business Development Michal Grinnell said. Other factors, such as the seasonality of farm labor and labor resources, also make it difficult for farmers to find workers.
“When it comes to autonomy, give us your dirty, dangerous, dull, mundane jobs, that's where we belong,” Grinnell said.
An advantage to working in the agricultural industry is different regulations making it easier to get autonomous vehicles to market compared to cars. A farm is a controlled environment without the risk of other human beings disrupting a route or the computer being confused by a complex road plan.
MACH vehicles are used for a variety of tasks on a farm, like tiling the soil of a field, compared to the straightforward task of self-driving cars to move people or cargo from point A to point B, MACH CEO Colin Hurd said.
The two companies involved in the merger both have expertise in different parts of the self-driving vehicle industry. Iowa-based Redshield Electronics worked primarily in the agricultural sector, while Finksburg-based LSA Autonomy, has more varied experience, working with clients like the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy. Midwest Growth Partners is providing financial backing for the deal.
Hurd, who previously founded and sold Smart Ag, a driverless tractor company, was impressed that LSA already had its products used on a large scale. He knew Redshield CEO Rhett Schildroth through other work and felt that the two companies would be a great fit with each other as a combined entity.
"I realized that in combining Redshield and LSA, we would have something that was really special and unique within the industry," Hurd said.
Westminster, Carroll County's seat, has been trying to attract more technology companies and is currently trying to build an autonomous public transit system.
