Indoor agricultural robotics startup Seasony recently secured €1.5 million in a funding round to support bringing its mobile robot “Watney” to more vertical farms globally. Led by Danish investment groups North Ventures and EFIO, the funds will fuel accelerating product development and expansion into key Middle East and North American markets.
Since 2018, Copenhagen-based Seasony has pioneered using flexible, cost-efficient mobile robots to automate labor-intensive vertical farming operations. Their signature bot Watney handles lifting, transporting, and meticulously analyzing individual plants - capabilities they envision making Watney the “John Deere” of indoor farming.
As Christopher Weis Thomasen, Seasony’s CEO, explains: “Watney can work around the clock, from the moment the seeds are sown to when the plants are harvested. When Watney moves around in a vertical farm, it takes care of tasks such as moving plant trays up and down from 10-meter-high shelves and transporting them to different stations.”
This round of financing will spur building on Watney’s strengths through upgraded sensing and data analytics features. By constantly monitoring variables like water intake, nutrients, and growth conditions, Watney can enable earlier interventions to optimize yields.
Seasony aspires to make vertical farming operations far more efficient through such cutting-edge automation. Watney’s durable role aims to supplant the need for either risky human-operated lifts or static conveyor setups in constrained indoor spaces. This makes Seasony’s mobile robot solution extremely versatile for integrating within existing layouts.
As urban farming scales globally, Seasony looks to be harvesting more than just healthy greens. With accomplished investors eager to grow Seasony’s innovative robotics, a new wave of agritech automation appears ready to bear fruit. Expect to see Watney’s sensory capabilities and planting insights fertilize bigger and brighter crops worldwide in the months ahead!