Inspired by his grandparents, who were apple farmers in China, Charlie Wu got the idea of applying technology in agriculture while studying computer science at Cornell University, a leading school of agriculture.
“I got to meet fruit teachers who are the best in the world in what they do,” Wu told TechCrunch. “Through them, I even realized even the largest farms in the nation basically You have no idea what really grows in their fields. ”
He left Cornell, became Thiel Fellow and in 2022 he began to build RoboticsA boot that uses cameras and AI to help fruit growers manage their crops more accurately.
On Wednesday, Orchard Robotics announced that it has increased the funding of the $ 22 million series, led by the quiet capital and Shine Capital and with the participation of investor refunds, including the general catalyst and the opposite.
Although the idea of using computer vision for special crops is not new, WU says that larger US holdings are still based on manual sampling to make critical decisions on agricultural companies.
Since farmers inspect only a small percentage of their crops, their estimates of how many healthy fruits in the vineyard or their orchard can be extremely unclear.
“If you don’t know what you grow up in the field, you don’t know how chemically to apply to it, you don’t know how many workers to hire to harvest. You don’t know what you can really sell and buy,” Wu said.
TechCrunch event
Francisco
|
27-29 October 2025
Orchard’s small camera is connected to tractors or farm vehicles, collecting extremely high -resolution images on fruit health as the operator leads to the field. These images are then analyzed by AI for the size, color and health of the fruit.
The data is subsequently uploaded to the cloud -based orchard software, which acts as a central record for decision -making such as vines or trees that may need extra fertilization, pruning or dilution.
Orchard is already used in some of the country’s largest apples and grape farms, and the start has recently begun to offer its technology in crankshafts, cherries, almonds, peanuts, citrus fruits and strawberry growers.
The company is not only in the use of cameras that have been placed on tractors to use AI for the analysis of special crops. Orchard’s immediate competitors include Bloomfield Robotics, which last year was acquired From the manufacturer of the Kubota agricultural equipment, as well as the newly formed robotic and green atlas.
WU admits that the existing purchase of fruits and vegetable data is only $ 1.5 billion, but believes that future AI developments will allow technology to make autonomous decisions, extending Orchard’s product offers.
He hopes that the evolution of Orchard will reflect that of Flock’s security, the start of $ 7.5 billion worth of public security, which has been expanded in the last eight years from the simple collection of sign information on a number of other products, including shooting and video tracking.
“Our ambition is to be much more than just to collect data,” Wu said. “We want to collect the data, then build an operating system over the data, and then finally have all the workflows on the farm and this will be able to extend our market quite a bit.”
