On Wednesday, February 28th, Aerobotics announced that it has received a R29 million Series A funding equivalent of $2 million from local venture capital company, Paper Plane Ventures. The funding round expansion came through a signed deal with Paper Ventures. This announcement was made at Aerobotic’s new office launch event.
The latest funding follows a $2-million round led by Nedbank in May last year (the deal was announced in July 2018 and an R8-million round in 2017 from SA VC 4Di Capital and the Savannah Fund in Kenya.
The Aerobotics’ new headquarters are based in De Waterkant in Cape Town’s central business district. A diverse group of people from the Aerobotics network, including Aerobotics staff, family members, clients, partners, investors and media attended the launch event.
“We are proud to have made the announcement about expanding our Series A funding round to $4 million at the launch of our new offices in De Waterkant,” said Aerobotics Co-Founder and CEO James Paterson.
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He continued “We are grateful that Paper Plane Ventures has put their faith and capital in our company, which we will use to expand our growth in South Africa, the United States and around the world and increase our ability of helping farmers and partners in the agriculture industry.”
At the meeting, Aerobotics announced that it is launching the first natural step to automated, accurate yield estimation with a new tool for farm yield management. This tool within the Aeroview app allows farmers to select a yield sample within their orchard and report the size distribution and number of fruits.
“Farmers traditionally have faced challenges recording the data they capture in the field when scouting and analysing yield samples,” said Aerobotics Head of Product Nasreen Patel. “We believe this new field management technology that is being built right into Aeroview will empower farmers to collect more accurate data in-field and make more informed decisions on thinning their fruit and, ultimately, optimizing their yield.”
Aerobotics also announced that Lindsay Griffin, a Chartered Accountant, has joined the company as Head of Business Enablement. Lindsay will be focused on streamlining the corporate finance structure and enabling the business to scale efficiently at its current rapid pace. Additionally, Lindsay will manage people and places within the business and compliment Aerobotics’ legal and financial operations.
Aerobotics’ various web-based and artificial intelligence (AI) enabled web and app software products help farmers scout and find areas of their vineyards of orchards that are underperforming because of pests or other problems.
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