€10 million for Saia’s greenhouse robot

SAIA Agrobotics, a developer of automation solutions for greenhouse horticulture based in Wageningen, has completed a new round of financing led by Check24 Impact, in collaboration with the EIC and existing investors Navus Ventures and Oost NL. SAIA Agrobotics is developing a disruptive solution in which the robot no longer enters the greenhouse, but the plant comes to the robot.

Global demand for healthy, fresh, and sustainably produced food will increase by 30 to 50% in the coming decades. This will also increase the demand for high-tech greenhouses, with more than 5,000 hectares of new construction worldwide each year. According to Rabobank, the availability of labor and knowledge to keep these greenhouses operational is the biggest bottleneck. Labor costs are skyrocketing and the need for automation is becoming increasingly urgent.

Innovative solution for harvesting and plant maintenance

SAIA Agrobotics, a leader in greenhouse automation, is developing a disruptive solution in which the robot no longer enters the greenhouse, but the plant comes to the robot. This gives the robot a full view of the fruit and makes the plant easily accessible, enabling fast automatic harvesting and plant maintenance. This new approach makes it possible to automate a greenhouse almost entirely. And this innovation brings us closer to a data-driven autonomous greenhouse using artificial intelligence.

“At SAIA, we recently built the world's first automated greenhouse, where plants go to the robot once a week to be scanned and harvested,” says Dr. Ruud Barth, CEO and founder of SAIA. “We are aiming for a 20 percent increase in yield and a 50 percent reduction in total labor in the greenhouse.” Ruud Barth notes that the first customer, Growers United, installed the first parts of the system at one of their locations earlier this year and is now working extensively with SAIA technology there.

New investment round for further commercialization

SAIA's new financing round follows a six-year period of technological development. Through various financing rounds from impact and deep tech investors SHIFT Invest, Innovation Industries, Navus Ventures, Check24 Impact, and Oost NL, SAIA raised a total of more than €20 million.