Insider Brief
- Versatile RobotX secured more than £1 million in investment and grant funding, including backing from British Design Fund, Innovate UK and Defra, to move its agricultural robots toward commercial deployment.
- The University of Essex spinout plans to use the funding for product development, manufacturing readiness, customer engagement and commercial expansion.
- Versatile RobotX develops robots combining AI, machine vision and robotic manipulation to automate harvesting and crop-handling tasks, with systems already field-tested by U.K. growers including Wilkin & Sons of Tiptree and JEPCO.
Versatile RobotX has secured more than £1 million in investment and grant funding to move its agricultural robots from field trials toward commercial deployment.
According to the University of Essex, the funding package includes an investment from British Design Fund along with support from Innovate UK’s Growth Catalyst program and grants through the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Farming Innovation Programme.
The company plans to use the funding for product development, manufacturing readiness, customer engagement and commercial expansion.
“Agriculture faces unprecedented challenges around labour availability, food security and sustainability, said the commpany’s CEO, professor Klaus McDonald-Maier. “This funding will allow us to accelerate the transition from successful field trials to commercial deployment, as we aim to make advanced robotics affordable and accessible to growers worldwide.”
What Versatile RobotX Does
Versatile RobotX develops agricultural robots that combine AI, machine vision and robotic manipulation to automate harvesting and crop-handling tasks. The company’s technology is focused on tasks that typically require substantial manual labor and where growers have faced difficulties finding workers.
Its systems have been tested in the field with U.K. growers including Wilkin & Sons of Tiptree and JEPCO.
The company said it is developing lower-cost robotic systems that can be used across different crops and agricultural environments. It is also exploring a robotics-as-a-service model intended to reduce the upfront cost for growers adopting automation.
Company Origin
Versatile RobotX was founded by University of Essex researchers McDonald-Maier and Vishwanathan Mohan. McDonald-Maier serves as CEO and heads the university’s Robotics and Embedded Systems Research Group, while Mohan is CTO and leads its AgriRobotics Laboratory.
The latest financing builds on previous support from Defra, Innovate UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Freeport East, the university noted. University of Essex Enterprise Limited has also supported the company as it moved its technology from academic research toward commercial systems.
