Setback
Apple-picking robot maker advanced.farm closed for lack of funding and cancelled its 2025 season in Washington.
A delay, pause or setback
What the source says
“closed its doors last week and scuttled plans for a 2025 harvest season in Washington.”
What it means
Fruit-picking robots, from Dogtooth, Tevel, FFRobotics, Agrobot, Oishii (Tortuga), is at stage 4 of 5 on our ladder: paying customers. A setback stays on the record next to the milestones; the stage moves down only when the rules say so.
Human help: The maker hasn't said whether people help it remotely.
More on Fruit-picking robots
- A review of research found fruit-picking robots still cope poorly with real orchards and fields.
- Dogtooth said growers use its robots on commercial farms, naming a recent deployment with Dyson Farming in the UK.
- UK strawberry-picking robot maker Dogtooth raised more than £14 million.
- Indoor strawberry grower Oishii bought the technology of Tortuga AgTech, a strawberry-picking robot maker.
- Burlington Berries in Tasmania, Australia, used 16 Dogtooth robots to pick its strawberries.
- Abundant Robotics, a California apple-picking robot startup founded in 2016, shut down.