Turns out that farmers like using lasers to kill weeds.
Seattle startup Carbon Robotics raised $30 million to fuel growth of its weed-zapping machines powered by artificial intelligence and computer vision technology. Update, April 20: Carbon announced an additional $5 million raised from Revolution Growth.
The company has spent four years in the literal field, working with farmers to fine-tune its LaserWeeder machine that uses thermal energy to eliminate weeds without damaging crops or disturbing soil.
The machine, which attaches to a tractor, has destroyed more than 500 million weeds across 40 different crops. This year, it will be delivered to 17 U.S. states and three provinces in Canada. The fresh cash will help the company prepare for expansion to Europe and pushes total funding to date to $67 million.
“We’re solving a real need that farmers have had for a long time, but we did not have the technological abilities to do this — until now,” said CEO Paul Mikesell.
The advancement of AI and real world object identification is enabling new forms of robotics technology and companies such as Carbon Robotics. Robot sales reached record highs last year in North America, according to the Association for Advancing Automation.
“There’s going to be a huge wave of companies that solve these kinds of problems,” Mikesell said. “And we’re sort of the vanguard of that movement.”
The LaserWeeder, a finalist for Hardware of the Year at next month’s GeekWire Awards, uses 30 industrial lasers with tracking cameras to kill up to 200,000 weeds per hour. It can zap weeds at their earliest stages.
The machine helps farmers address labor shortages and lower herbicide costs. Instead of picking weeds, Mikesell said workers can learn how to run a LaserWeeder, “which gives them a more marketable and higher-paying skill set.”
Carbon recently rolled out a new thinning feature that uses lasers to help provide even spacing between plants. It is also expanding a data platform that lets farmers better understand what’s happening in the field.
Mikesell said there are other companies developing automated cultivators but they “tear up the soil” and cause problems with crops.
Carbon estimates the total addressable market at $41 billion, based on specialty crop farm planted acreage.
Tech startups have become attractive acquisition targets for giants such as John Deere, which acquired autonomous driving tech company Flag Robotics for $250 million in 2021 and bought SparkAI, another robotics startup, in March.
Mikesell previously co-founded Isilon Systems, which sold to EMC for $2.25 billion in 2010, and also led infrastructure engineering for Uber.
Carbon is certainly a unique entrepreneurial journey. Mikesell said he’s proud that the company has helped bridge a “divide” between a tech-heavy urban center like Seattle and the rural agricultural industry across the rest of Washington state.
“Farmers are business people, just like in tech,” he said.
He’s also getting an education in how food is grown.
“Everybody would benefit from learning a little bit about where your food comes from, because you’ll learn some surprising things,” Mikesell said, adding that “herbicides can be really bad for your health.”
Carbon employs around 90 people, split between engineering and sales.
Sozo Ventures, a new investor, led the Series C round, which included participation from existing backers Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid2 and Voyager Capital. Rob Freelen of Sozo Ventures and Erik Benson of Voyager Capital joined the Carbon board of directors.
Benson last year called Carbon “the fastest growing company I’ve seen in 23 years of VC.”
Venture funding to robotics startups fell 44% year-over-year in 2022 to $9.8 billion amid the larger tech downturn, according to Crunchbase data. Last year represented the second-best year for agtech investment activity, PitchBook reported, with $10.6 billion raised.
