Recently, California-based Orchard Robotics announced the completion of a $22 million Series A funding round (over RMB 150 million). The round was led by Quiet Capital and Shine Capital, with continued investment from existing shareholders such as General Catalyst and Contrary, and participation from new institutions including Mythos, Valyrian, and Ravelin. Notably, Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg and Howard Lerman, founder of Yext and Roam, also appeared on the investor list. With this round, the company’s total funding has exceeded $25 million.
Michael Bloch, Partner at Quiet Capital, will join the board of directors. He pointed out that the agricultural industry has “long relied on vague and unclear data for decision-making,” while Orchard Robotics is providing the “ground truth” that agriculture urgently needs—helping farms transition from experience-based and sampling methods to data-driven precision management.
From “Orchard Eyes” to Data Hub
Orchard Robotics positions itself as an “AI agriculture company.” Its core product, the FruitScope Vision System, is an AI-powered visual platform that can be mounted on tractors or agricultural machinery. It captures and analyzes millions of crop images to assess tree health, fruit size, and distribution.
The supporting FruitScope Vault & OS serves as an agricultural “operating system,” storing and analyzing this structured data to help growers make more accurate decisions in fertilization, irrigation, labor scheduling, and harvest planning.
Currently, this technology is already being applied in apple orchards and vineyards in the United States and is gradually expanding to other high-value crops such as blueberries, cherries, almonds, pistachios, citrus, and strawberries.
Founder Charlie Wu (a Cornell University alumnus and Thiel Fellow) emphasized: “Agriculture hasn’t fundamentally changed over the past 20 years, but costs have risen sharply. The core issue is data. Every decision in agriculture relies on data, and the lack of precise, actionable data is the bottleneck.”
Agriculture AI: A New Favorite of Capital
Orchard Robotics’ funding is not an isolated event. Recently, the U.S. agricultural robotics sector has seen frequent capital activity:
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TRIC Robotics, Saga Robotics, and 4AG Robotics have successively announced funding progress;
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Bonsai Robotics acquired agricultural machinery startup farm-ng;
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John Deere acquired automated spraying company GUSS Automation.
This reflects the capital market’s growing recognition of agriculture as a key frontier for AI and robotics adoption. Especially in high-value orchard and specialty crop sectors, plagued by labor shortages and rising costs, there is an urgent need for data-driven precision management to replace traditional experience-based methods.
For investors, Orchard Robotics offers not just agricultural hardware but a complete closed-loop platform for data collection, analysis, and decision-making. This implies potential SaaS and subscription-based business models, promising more stable revenue expectations.
A Precision Agriculture Platform Expanding from California to the World
Moving forward, Orchard Robotics plans to double its team size within the year and open a new office in San Francisco to accelerate technological iteration and market expansion. With growing demand in international markets, particularly in high-value fruit and vegetable industries.
It is foreseeable that Orchard Robotics is at a critical inflection point: it serves not only as “AI cameras in orchards” but also as underlying infrastructure for agricultural digitization. As data becomes the “new fertilizer,” the commercialization and capitalization of precision agriculture are set to accelerate.
