Dutch robot builder Honest AgTech declared bankrupt
Dutch robot builder Honest AgTech was declared bankrupt by the District Court of Noord-Holland, The Netherlands. Earlier this year at the exposition Fruit Logistica in Berlin, the company in Delft introduced the first autonomous robot for applying UV-C in the greenhouse.
The robot developer has filed for bankruptcy itself due to a liquidity shortage. A restart is being investigated. According to the curator, the most important thing is to find a solution for the twenty employees of Honest AgTech. A decision will be made about this in mid-July. More time is needed for a possible restart of the technology – building autonomous robots for horticulture, according to Dutch magazine Nieuwe Oogst.
Autonomous robot for horticulture
The robot that Honest AgTech introduced earlier this year in collaboration with CleanLight is the world’s first Level 5 autonomous robot for horticulture. ‘This means that the grower does not have to use his hands and brains when it comes to the work of the robot’, CCO Maren Schoormans explained in an earlier interview. In practice, seven Honest AgTech robots were active. The aim was to sell another twelve robots this year.
Although Schoormans also concluded that the threshold for investing in a robot is still high for many growers, due to the high investment. The Honest AgTech robot costs between 100,000 and 130,000 euros.
