Not going to lie, IUNU (pronounced “you knew”) isn’t the best identify (additional complicated issues is the presence of a robotic referred to as “LUNA”). However the agtech agency is concerned in a strong enterprise and simply acquired a pleasant vote of confidence within the type of a Sequence B spherical. At the moment’s information finds the Seattle-based agency choosing up $24 million in funding, led by Lewis & Clark Ventures, with S2G Ventures, Ceres Companions and Astanor Ventures returning for extra.
Slightly than working within the subject or vertical farming, the corporate’s concentrating on the world of greenhouses. Its LUNA robotic system strikes alongside the highest of a greenhouse roof, checking in on crops utilizing pc imaginative and prescient. The system can detect drawback areas and spots which are prepared to reap, so farmers don’t must stroll up and down crops — one thing that begins to change into a problem as farms scale.
These are the form of techniques we’ve generally seen rolled out for extra conventional farms as half of a bigger autonomous robotic. Greenhouses definitely make sense for the tech, as they successfully enable it to maneuver backwards and forwards on a monitor.
IUNU says it’s at the moment working with 1 / 4 of greenhouse leafy inexperienced growers within the U.S. The corporate at the moment employs 60, a 50% improve in headcount over the past six months. This spherical will go towards increasing its international footprint, in addition to rising R&D on new merchandise.
“This spherical of funding displays the arrogance institutional traders have in us,” CEO Adam Greenberg says in a launch. “The dialog round autonomous rising has accelerated up to now yr, and we’re proud to be main the way in which on this entrance.
As all the time, knowledge’s the massive play right here, and iUNU claims it at the moment has the “largest manufacturing dataset within the business,” based mostly on current deployment. A giant cache like that’s necessary for creating algorithms that may assist determine potential issues earlier than they change into main points for a given crop.
In September, the corporate acquired our 2015 Startup Battlefield winner Artemis (nee Agrilyst) to bolster its data-collecting capabilities.
