Burro, the Philadelphia-based company that provides autonomous solutions for the agriculture industry, says it has closed its $24 million Series B funding round.
Translink Capital and Catalyst Investors led this round of funding, according to a news release. Existing investors include investors S2G Ventures, Toyota Ventures, F-Prime Capital and Cibus Capital.
Burro said that as part of the funding round, Brian Rich, managing partner with Catalyst Investors, and Kaz Kikuchi from Translink Capital, will join the company’s board of directors.
“What sets Burro apart among the robotics sector is the team’s brilliant vision for augmenting –— not replacing — labor with machines that work safely and reliably outdoors alongside humans, exponentially increasing efficiency and production,” Rich said in the release. “The Burro approach is already proven, and its ROI demonstrated for farms and nurseries, perfectly positioning them to become the dominant outdoor robotics company for various industries and uses.”
Burro’s devices function as autonomous ground vehicles for carrying, towing, patrolling and mowing. The company said more than 300 of its robots currently work in specialty crops such as citrus, berries, vineyards and nurseries in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South America.
“Robots have long been stuck in warehouses and factories, and few robotics companies have successfully scaled outdoors into industries like agriculture, nurseries and construction, where trillions of dollars are spent annually on labor,” Burro CEO Charlie Andersen said in the release. “We have built a world-class product based upon state-of-the-art autonomous AI technology, and with this funding, we will deliver solutions for real-world problems, distributed worldwide through our network of dealers.”
The company said it plans to expand its commercial, product and engineering teams. It also plans to grow its dealer network and launch new products including the Burro Grande, with a 500-pound payload for light-duty towing, according to the release.
“At Translink, we really like companies in the autonomy and robotics sector. We are especially excited about how Burro has brought automation to the agriculture sector,” Kikuchi said in the release. “With their unique approach, Burros can work year-round, combatting the innate seasonality of work outdoors, by operating in a variety of crops and performing multiple tasks with one platform. Burro is positioned to be the first robotic company to successfully scale in agriculture and other outdoor environments.”
