In a nutshell:
- Bulgarian Smart Farm Robotix, a fully autonomous solar-powered lightweight weeding robot, secured €2.36M in funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC).
- The company expects the new investment to be instrumental in attracting an additional €1/1.5M in private funding by the end of 2025.
- A new set of 42 companies has been selected to receive European Innovation Council (EIC) funding, combining grants and equity, following the final 2023 EIC Accelerator cut-off in November.
Their background story:
Automation and robotics have emerged as valuable tools in the agricultural sector, driven by labor shortages, climate change, and the drive for sustainable agriculture practices.
Founded in 2022, Smart Farm Robotix primarily focuses on organic herb producers, targeting a gap in existing technology that often overlooks the perennial plants segment and the semi-mountainous terrains of Southern Europe.
Smart Farm Robotix produces a fully solar-powered weeding robot equipped with cameras, positional sensors, and AI for weed detection with autonomous navigation. It deploys both contact and contactless methods to cope with weeds.
The first two prototypes were developed with the founders’ funding and with the support of the PARA incubator, 2022 edition.
In their own words:
According to the company’s founder, Rossen Kolev, “Most weeding robots from Europe are designed for the flat, well-aerated, well-watered fields in Northern and Central Europe. So, there is a lot of potential here that is simply neglected.”
Next steps:
The company plans to expand its technology to cover a broader spectrum, including data collection on soil quality, pest presence, pathogens, and biodiversity.
Smart Farm Robotix aims for large-scale field tests this spring in two Bulgarian farms and an organic nursery in Italy. The company’s focus is accelerating its research and development efforts, hiring additional engineers, AI specialists, and agri-tech sales support experts.
