FarmWise, San Francisco, raised $14.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Calibrate Ventures, Pasadena, Calif., in addition to existing investors such as Wilbur Ellis Holdings, Inc., San Francisco; Xplorer Capital, Menlo Park, Calif.; and Alumni Ventures Group, Manchester, N.H. The proceeds will be used to grow the company’s robotic engineering and operation teams, as well as boost R&D efforts on plant-level detection and actuation capabilities.

FarmWise's autonomous, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled robots perform a variety of farming functions such as weeding. Using machine learning models, computer vision and high-precision mechanical tools, FarmWise’s sophisticated robots cleanly pick weeds from fields, leaving crops with the best opportunity to thrive while eliminating harmful chemical inputs.  

“Each day, one FarmWise robot can weed crops to feed a medium-sized city of approximately 400,000 inhabitants. We are now enhancing the scale and depth of our proprietary plant-detection technology to help growers with more of their processes and on more of their crops. Looking ahead, our robots will increasingly act as specialized doctors for crops, monitoring individual health and adjusting targeted interventions according to a crop’s individual needs,” says Sebastien Boyer, co-founder and CEO.

Jason Schoettler, co-founder of Calibrate Ventures, will join FarmWise’s board of directors.

“We are thrilled to support FarmWise, which has managed to bring a radical idea from concept to commercialization in under three years,” he adds. “This is a testament to their uniquely talented team, problem solving capabilities and deep understanding of their customer and market. FarmWise is poised to fundamentally disrupt farming processes and we are excited to play a role in their future.”