Bluewhite raises $ 39M to bring autonomous innovation to farms
Bluewhite, the agricultural Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) company enabling data-driven autonomous farming, announced that it secured $ 39M in Series C financing led by Insight Partners, with participation from new investors Alumni Ventures and LIP Ventures, among others.
The company will use the funds to further scale its agricultural autonomous tractor and farming solutions, and expand into new markets worldwide based on its track record.
The global market for autonomous tractors is due to reach $ 11.5B by 2030, as growers face increased pressure to produce more with fewer resources amid challenges including labor shortages, rising operational costs, global population growth, and environmental changes. While autonomous farming solutions can alleviate these issues, successful implementation and scale have largely remained problematic and elusive.
Providing more markets
Bluewhite is equipping growers’ existing fleets with proprietary autonomous technology and a user-friendly experience to provide growers with data-driven insights to help better manage their farms, thus increasing yields and profitability.
“This new round of funding will enable us to continue providing sustainable autonomous innovation to more markets and work with different types of partners across the ecosystem to impact every level of the food supply chain,” said Ben Alfi, co-founder and CEO of Bluewhite.
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New Holland tractor equipped with Bluewhite’s autonomous retrofit kit. – Photo: Maxence Guillaumot
Bluewhite combines hardware and software into a single solution, allowing for completely remote fleet and data management. The company’s Pathfinder product is retrofitted onto any tractor and leverages computer vision, AI, and smart implements integration to navigate and execute multiple tasks autonomously, from crop seeding and spraying to mowing and harvesting, even in challenging conditions. Compass, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) component of Bluewhite’s solution, collects data from the field, analyzes it using AI algorithms, and provides real-time dashboards, reports and insights.
Bluewhite’s autonomous solution can be applied across all permanent crop types, including nuts, berries, apples, grapes, hops, stone fruit, and more. The company’s solution has already helped execute more than 50,000 hours of autonomous farming activity across 150,000 acres of crops in California and Washington, USA.
