Crowdfunding boosts Small Robot Company

Small Robot Company, a British agritech start-up for sustainable farming, today announced that it achieved its Crowdcube equity crowdfunding funding target of £500,000 within minutes of its launch. The campaign is continuing to gather momentum, and the company is now working to reach its stretch targets.

The company’s hugely successful start to its campaign was was overwhelmingly due to backing from the farming community. It is also gathering pace with the technology community, including early investment from Matt Jones, Principle Designer at Google AI.

Small Robot Company harnesses the power and precision of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the way that food is produced and minimise chemical usage. It will make farms more profitable, and increase yield and efficiency, through using small robots instead of tractors. Its farmbots Tom Dick and Harry will plant, feed and weed arable crops autonomously, with minimal waste.

“This is game-changing for Small Robot Company. We have already made phenomenal progress. Just one year on from our foundation, we already have three prototype robots and an AI that can tell Wheat from Weed,” says Sam Watson Jones, co-founder and fourth generation Shropshire farmer. “With this backing through Crowdcube, we are now poised to completely transform food production.”

“There is a huge amount of investment going into agritech at the moment, with more than $10bn invested in the sector in 2017, a figure that is projected to rise both this year and next. However, most of these investment deals are private affairs and individual investors rarely get a chance to participate. Which is why we are excited to partner with Crowdcube to share the opportunity to grow a business which is working to change the way that technology is used to produce food.”