Carbon Robotics, a Seattle, WA-based company that develops AI-powered robots for precision agriculture, closed $30 million in Series C financing, bringing its overall funding to $67 million.
The round was led by Sozo Ventures, along with existing investors Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid2, and Voyager Capital.
The funding will be used to expand sales regions, optimize and scale manufacturing, develop new software and hardware products, and launch into international markets.
“This financing round further supports our mission to provide cost-effective and efficient precision ag-tech tools to growers,” said Paul Mikesell, CEO and founder of Carbon Robotics. “Traditional weeding methods, including hand weeding and herbicides, are expensive, unreliable and damage soil health. The LaserWeeder uniquely addresses all of these challenges.”
Its LaserWeeder™ identifies and eliminates weeds with high-powered CO2 lasers that use thermal energy to destroy the meristem of the weed with millimeter accuracy without damaging nearby crops or soil.
Carbon Robotics' LaserWeeder has eliminated more than 500 million weeds across 40 different crops and will be delivered to farms across 17 US states and three provinces in Canada.
As part of the Series C financing, Rob Freelen with Sozo Ventures and Erik Benson with Voyager Capital will join the Carbon Robotics board of directors.
Company: Carbon Robotics
Raised: $30.0M
Round: Series C
Funding Month: April 2023
Lead Investors: Sozo Ventures
Additional Investors: Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid2, and Voyager Capital
Company Website: https://carbonrobotics.com/
Software Category: AI-powered robotics for precision agriculture
About the Company: Founded in 2018, Carbon Robotics is a company that builds innovative agricultural tools that empower farmers to operate more efficiently. Carbon Robotics specializes in AI-powered robotics for the agriculture industry. The company produces revolutionary AI-powered robotic systems that precisely identify, weed and thin specialty vegetable crops using lasers with millimeter accuracy while observing the conditions of the crop and soil in a field for later analysis. Their main product is the LaserWeeder, a precision weeding tool that uses AI, computer vision, and high-powered CO2 lasers to eliminate weeds without damaging nearby crops or disturbing the soil. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230411005018/en/Carbon-Robotics-Raises-30-Million-in-Funding-to-Scale-AI-Powered-LaserWeeder%E2%84%A2-Platform