Santa Cruz Ventures Closes Round 1 with farm-ng
Santa Cruz Ventures is excited to announce its inaugural investment in farm-ng, who secured a significant $10.05 million in Series A funding. The funding round was led by Acre Venture Partners with participation from Xplorer Capital, HawkTower, and ten other institutional and individual investors. This investment reflects the confidence and support of the investor community in farm-ng’s vision, strategy, and the potential for transformative impact on sustainable agriculture.
“We are thrilled to announce Santa Cruz Ventures’ 1st portfolio company, farm-ng," said Alexi Sevastopoulos of Santa Cruz Ventures. “They are led by an outstanding, very experienced team aimed at disrupting a large market overdue for innovation; and its epicenter is right here in Watsonville. Over a year ago, we set out to discover the history of start-up success in this area and were delightfully surprised. We couldn’t have reached this milestone without the support of our local friends, ecosystem partners, and LPs who all helped us become the first institutional venture firm in the tri-county." Alexi Sevastopoulos / Santa Cruz Ventures
Built for multiple environments, tasks, and crops, the Amiga helps farms reduce operational costs, increase yields, and realize a rapid return on investment. Its open and extensible software allows for integration into farming applications and endless customization through developers and partners. In less than 18 months, over 100 Amigas have been deployed to execute a range of farming tasks from seeding, precision spraying, pest management, and compost spreading to phenotyping and geo-tagged data collection, visualization, and analysis.
Growers face significant labor challenges. In the U.S. alone, $90 billion is spent on repetitive, hazardous, manual farm tasks. Labor shortages are exacerbated by reduced immigration and rising wages. Climate-related costs are thinning profit margins and farm management lacks the data it needs to make precise decisions and scale operations.
farm-ng is squarely focused on addressing the issues the farming industry experiences with its robotics and AI solutions. The company aims to deliver three game-changing outcomes for its customers:
Productive, resilient farming operations: With cost-effective access to farm-ng solutions, farms can become more productive by significantly reducing manual labor, maintenance, and fuel costs. With automation, they can be more resilient to labor shortages, economic shifts, and climate shocks.
Inclusive, sustainable farming practices: The Amiga is simple for anyone on the farm to operate. With the automation of labor-intensive tasks, farms can operate more efficiently, increase yields, and invest in sustainable practices that deliver more profit to growers and healthier food to more people.
Quick ROI with appropriate robotics and AI: Because the farm-ng platform is open and modular, it offers infinite customization options that enable farmers to easily adapt to various crop types for increased food production. The Amiga’s versatility not only provides a quick return on investment, but evolves with the operation over time.
“We are eager to continue our journey in revitalizing agriculture with our robotics and AI platform thanks to the support of our lead investors Acre Venture Partners and Xplorer Capital, as well as HawkTower, an other investment partners. This Series A funding will enable us to accelerate manufacturing to meet market demand, fund the development of more autonomous farm capabilities, scale our go to market, and develop an ecosystem of applications that help farms thrive for generations to come. At farm-ng, we are committed to cultivating a future where everyone has access to healthy food grown in an ecologically and economically sustainable way.” Ethan Rublee, CEO and Founder of farm-ng.
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Ethan Rublee, CEO and Founder of farm-ng, was selected as a Titans of Tech 2023. Join us on February 01, 2024 to learn from Ethan about his journey.