US agtech firm Bear Flag Robotics raises $7.9 million round led by true ventures

Bear Flag Robotics announced a $7.9 million seed extension funding round led by True Ventures. The Silicon Valley-based agtech company is developing autonomous technology for farm tractors, which enables growers to increase productivity and improve safety on their farms. True Ventures led the round with participation from Graphene Ventures, AgFunder, D20 and Green Cow VC. Including this round of funding, the company has raised $12.5 million total since Bear Flag Co-Founders Igino Cafiero and Aubrey Donnellan founded the company in 2017.

Today's growers are faced with the difficult proposition of increasing productivity with continuously rising costs and limited resources. The farm labor pool is disappearing and increasing in cost, 10 percent year over year.

Climate change is forcing growers to consolidate operations into shorter weather windows. Safety is also a pressing concern; tractor overturns and transportation incidents are the leading cause of death on U.S. farms. Bear Flag Robotics is helping growers overcome these challenges rapidly and increase reliability and uptime on their farms.

"I absolutely love this team and their mission, but when their customers told us how much they loved their Bear Flag tractors, and how farmers from the region would see it in the field and come pay a visit, we knew that this was a special company." said AgFunder partner, Rob Leclerc, "Bear Flag has the potential to be one of the most important companies in agriculture over the next decade."

Bear Flag Robotics' mission is to increase global food production and reduce the cost of growing food through machine automation. The company provides the technology, services and support to enable autonomous tractor operations, helping growers produce more food with less resources. While the tractors run autonomously, human supervisors use Bear Flag's software to monitor and command their fleet from a remote mission control room or personal device. The software plans optimal field patterns based on growers' implements, and provides predictive and post-run analytics that enable growers to farm better each season.

"When we first invested in Igino and Aubrey, we saw an innovative, passionate team bringing automation to farms," said Rohit Sharma, partner at True Ventures. "The impact of what Bear Flag Robotics delivers is meaningful every single day for farm operations, growers and consumers."

Bear Flag Robotics is currently working with the largest produce and commodity growers in California and Arizona. The company's direct-to-growers sales model allows the company to partner with its customers. This ensures a high quality standard while continuously releasing software capabilities that drive the most impact on the ground. By linking seasonal data, Bear Flag can improve efficiency and lower costs through the entire growing season.