Bluewhite raises $39 million to bring autonomous innovation to farms worldwide
Bluewhite raises $39 million to bring autonomous innovation to farms worldwide
The company’s product is retrofitted onto any tractor and leverages computer vision and AI to navigate and execute multiple tasks autonomously, from crop seeding and spraying to mowing and harvesting
Bluewhite, an agricultural Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) company enabling data-driven autonomous farming, announced on Tuesday that it secured $39 million in Series C financing led by Insight Partners, with participation from new investors Alumni Ventures and LIP Ventures, among others. Existing investors Entrée Capital, Jesselson, and Peregrine Ventures also participated in the financing round.
The company, which already works with more than 20 of the leading permanent crop growers in the U.S., will use the funds to further scale its agricultural autonomous tractor and farming solutions, and expand into new markets worldwide. The Series C brings Bluewhite’s funding to date to $89 million.
Bluewhite, formerly Blue White Robotics, was founded in 2017 by Ben Alfi, Yair Shahar, and Aviram Shmueli. It is headquartered in Tel Aviv with offices in Fresno, California. The company employs 130 people, including 85 in Israel.
Bluewhite combines hardware and software into a single solution, allowing for completely remote fleet and data management. The company’s Pathfinder product is retrofitted onto any tractor and leverages computer vision, AI, and smart implements integration to navigate and execute multiple tasks autonomously, from crop seeding and spraying to mowing and harvesting, even in challenging conditions. Compass, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) component of Bluewhite’s solution, collects data from the field, analyzes it using advanced AI algorithms, and provides real-time dashboards, reports and insights, ensuring maximum efficiency across farm operations on any device.
The global market for autonomous tractors is due to reach $11.5B by 2030, as growers face increased pressure to produce more with fewer resources amid challenges including labor shortages, rising operational costs, global population growth, and environmental changes. While autonomous farming solutions can alleviate these issues, successful implementation and scale have largely remained problematic and elusive.
“Having already proven the commercial success of our solution with growers, this new round of funding will enable us to continue providing sustainable autonomous innovation to more markets and work with different types of partners across the ecosystem to impact every level of the food supply chain,” said Ben Alfi, co-founder and CEO of Bluewhite. “This next phase of our growth will help provide unprecedented transparency throughout the food supply chain and ensure healthier, safer, and more sustainable food production and consumption. We are thrilled to have forward-thinking investors and amazing customers who share our vision to make sustainable, autonomous farming a reality worldwide.”
Bluewhite’s autonomous solution can be applied across all permanent crop types, including nuts, berries, apples, grapes, hops, stone fruit, and more. The company’s solution has already helped execute more than 50,000 hours of autonomous farming activity across 150,000 acres of crops in California and Washington.
