Raven to acquire full ownership of DOT

As part of its ongoing commitment to autonomous agriculture solutions, Raven Industries, Inc. (the Company; NASDAQ:RAVN) announced on Monday that it has entered into agreements to acquire the remaining equity of DOT Technology Corp. (DOT^®), a leader in autonomous platforms. This additional investment is further indication of Raven’s confidence in its position to bring these innovations to market and expand its market share in precision ag technology.

DOT is the developer of the “Dot Power Platform,” an autonomous power unit that has the ability to pair with a wide range of implements which are critical to agricultural production and will offer a variety of labor saving solutions to farmers and Ag Retailers alike. Fusing DOT, and the recently acquired Smart Ag^® autonomous perception and path planning technology, with our core technology platforms in guidance, steering, and machine control enables Raven to deliver revolutionary autonomous solutions and greatly accelerate our long-term growth in Applied Technology. The company is currently moving forward with commercialization of Raven Autonomy™ and will be expanding its portfolio with new offerings, which will increase the value of autonomy to end-users at a rapid pace.

“We see tremendous synergies between our current business and in the investments we have made in DOT and Smart Ag, an Iowa-based autonomy company which we acquired last November,” said Wade Robey, Executive Director of Raven Autonomy. “We are very excited to be a leader in ag autonomy, and we are committed to working with our customers and partners to help bring these exciting new technologies to ag markets around the globe. Developing solutions for ag autonomy expands the total addressable market served by the Applied Technology Division by several billion dollars and positions the business for tremendous growth over the next several years.”

For decades, Raven has been committed to maximizing operational efficiencies through our core offering of application and machine control platforms. The company’s initiative into autonomous solutions is an extension of that core. As the demand of the overall farming operation and compliance requirements become more complex, the need for more efficient utilization of resources is critical. Raven is best positioned to solve this great challenge. The company’s autonomous solutions will become an essential part of agricultural equipment technology for ag retailers and growers and enable them to drive significant productivity improvements in the future.