As part of our Sacramento Inno coverage, the Business Journal for the first time compiled a list of Startups to Watch in the new year. These startups are poised to make big moves, either in growth, funding, technology or development. We're highlighting 13 startups, generally with fewer than 100 employees, about 5 years old or less and that have raised less than $50 million. The group includes a diverse mix of companies throughout the region.
Startup to Watch: Advanced Farm Technologies Inc.
In a barn on farmland just outside the city of Davis, a group of engineers, programmers and computer scientists are developing automation and robotics for picking fruit and vegetables. It’s a technology that, if accepted, could solve some of the problems of a growing labor shortage in food production, which is contributing to rising costs as competition for pickers intensifies.
Advanced Farm Technologies Inc. introduced its technology two years ago — a machine that uses four onboard robots with custom cameras to find and pick ripe strawberries. That was a hard task, because the machine must determine ripe from unripe, berry from leaves, and then not ruin the fruit in picking it. “Nearly every piece of fresh fruit and vegetable is picked by hand,” Advanced Farm President and co-founder Kyle Cobb told the Business Journal. “We are automating the toughest tasks in farming.”
The company this year raised $25 million in an investment round led by venture capital firms and corporate investors. Advanced Farm will use the investment to advance its strawberry harvesting equipment and to develop technologies for other fruits and vegetables, Cobb said. The harvester can work autonomously 24 hours a day, giving potential to address the growing shortage of farmworkers available to harvest food, he said, adding that it is a potential $40 billion market.
The company works with breeding and engineering programs at the University of California Davis, Cobb said. Advanced Farm currently has 35 employees and plans to double its workforce over the next couple of years. The company is hiring software engineers, firmware engineers and mechanical engineers, along with technicians and field-based positions.
