{"id":577746,"date":"2024-02-02T16:14:28","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T21:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/?p=577746"},"modified":"2024-02-02T16:33:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T21:33:06","slug":"agtech-startup-small-robot-company-shutting-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/agtech-startup-small-robot-company-shutting-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Agtech startup Small Robot Company shutting down"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Robotics for Farming - Small Robot Company\" width=\"740\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6xPmQvxf3ps?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smallrobotco.com\/home.html\">Small Robot Company<\/a> (SRC) is shutting down as it failed to get the funding needed to reach its next phase. The company has entered liquidation after an extended battle for survival. Despite having a signed term sheet, the awaited investment failed to materialize before the company&#8217;s financial runway ran out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were the victims of the valley of death,&#8221; SRC told <em>The Robot Repor<\/em>t. &#8220;We just don\u2019t have the funding ecosystem for hardware (or indeed any tech!) that [companies] have in the US. Or the appetite for risk. Agriculture is perceived as very risky. Government funding only covers [development] to prototype.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As of February 1st, Kroll has been appointed as administrator to oversee the sale of assets. Collaborating with Kroll, efforts are being made to identify potential acquirers to secure a future for some of the team and the technology, which continues to offer benefits to farmers and the environment.<\/p>\n<h2>Tom, Dick and Harry at your service<\/h2>\n<p>The Salisbury England-based company developed an autonomous platform for agriculture applications. The company was also famous for the everyday names of its robots. &#8220;Tom&#8221; was the first mobile robot released by SRC and was a weeding platform. &#8220;Dick&#8221; was designed to be a weed-zapper, but the robot didn\u2019t make it out of early trials. And &#8220;Harry&#8221; was designed to be a planting robot. The company&#8217;s AI to identify the weeds was called &#8220;Wilma.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Small Robot Co: Per Plant Farming\" width=\"740\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/21fdhwcQQFc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Founded in 2017, by Ben Scott-Robinson, Sarra Mander, and Sam Watson Jones, the company raised a total of $13.18 million over 6 funding rounds, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crunchbase.com\/search\/funding_rounds\/field\/organizations\/funding_total\/the-small-robot-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Crunchbase<\/a>, and grew to over 50 employees. The latest funding round was in September 2022.<\/p>\n<h2>Agtech is a competitive market<\/h2>\n<p>Several global startups are competing in this market for smaller format agtech mobile robots. These autonomous mobile robots are designed for smaller farms, and especially for high-value crops. These companies include <a href=\"https:\/\/burro.ai\/\">Burro<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/farm-ng.com\/\">farm-ng<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.naio-technologies.com\/en\/\">Naio Technologies<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swarmfarm.com\/\">SwarmFarm<\/a>. farm-ng recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/farm-ng-raises-10m-series-a-scale-amiga-robot-ai-small-midsize-farms\/\">closed a $10M series A<\/a>, and Burro recently announced the launch of its newest model, the <a href=\"https:\/\/burro.ai\/burro-grande\/\">Burro Grande<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This news comes on the heels of other recent bad news for some robot companies in January, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/tire-changing-startup-robotire-files-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/\">RoboTire bankruptcy<\/a>, the termination of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/irobot-terminates-deal-with-amazon-laying-off-31-of-staff\/\">Amazon&#8217;s acquisition of iRobot<\/a>, and layoffs at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/locus-robotics-reduces-staff-but-ceo-still-bullish-mobile-robot-market-growth\/\">Locus Robotics<\/a>, Vecna Robotics and other companies.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Embedded post\" src=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/embed\/feed\/update\/urn:li:share:7158903281409298432\" width=\"504\" height=\"1406\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite having a signed term sheet, the awaited investment failed to materialize before the company&#8217;s financial runway ran out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":832,"featured_media":577763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rbr50_analysis":"","rbr50_state":"","rbr50_country":"","rbr50_description":"","rbr50_numemps":"","rbr50_text_taxonomy_radio":null,"rbr50_text_taxonomy_select":null,"rbr50_url":"","rbr50_yearfounded":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1391,2013,3502,1396,1401],"tags":[2514],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Agtech startup Small Robot Company shutting down<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Despite having a signed term sheet, the awaited investment failed to materialize 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