Weeds may be an increasingly troublesome problem for farmers, but a new machinery company driven by artificial intelligence is also growing rapidly.
Seattle based carbon robotics released its latest AGTech device 2022 laser planter on Monday. It is a robotic tool that can be pulled behind a tractor. It uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to quickly identify and locate weeds in the field and uses heat to eliminate weeds.
Erik Benson, managing director of Voyager capital in Seattle, told geekwire: “carbon is the fastest growing company I’ve seen in 23 years of venture capital.”. “This is a company worth $50 billion in the future.”
Carbon was founded in 2018 and led by Paul mikesell, co-founder of Isilon systems. He sold Isilon for $2.25 billion in 2010 and worked at Uber and Facebook before going to the farm.
The company received $27 million in a round of financing last September and has raised $36 million so far.
Voyager capital, anthos capital, ignition capital and fuse are all companies that invest in the company.
Carbon robotics employs 35 people and plans to increase to 50 this year.
The updated lasewe weeder uses 30 industrial CO2 lasers, which is more than three times that of the self driving automatic laser weeder previously released by the company in April 2021. The new machine can cover an average of two acres of land per hour.
“It’s proven to be more effective for farmers to use chemical herbicides in the soil, as well as in reducing the cost of planting crops,” Kessel said.
Thanks to orders from many farms, the new laser seed machines have been sold out, and carbon fiber is currently accepting pre orders for 2023.
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