Already at the top of its game, a Salmon Arm robotics company is set to grow, having secured $40 million from investors.
Regarded as a global pioneer in fully autonomous mushroom harvesting, 4AG Robotics shared word of the new investor support on Tuesday, July 29. The financial backing is led by Astanor and Cibus Capital, with support from new investor Voyager Capital and existing investors InBC, Emmertech, BDC Industrial Innovation Fund, Jim Richardson Family Office and Stray Dog Capital.
"This round follows a $17.5 million round in 2023, bringing total capital raised to $57.5 million in the past two years," reads a 4AG news release.
4AG CEO Sean O'Connor is excited to see some of the "top agriculture innovation investors on the planet" choosing to put "a huge amount of money" into the Salmon Arm-based business.
"What that means is we’ll keep scaling the business," said O'Connor in an interview with the Observer, explaining the company is in the process of expanding to meet growing global demand for its robotic harvesting platform, already being used in Canada, Ireland, and Australia, with "new deployments soon to be underway in the Netherlands and the United States."
4AG’s mushroom picking technology uses AI-powered computer vision, precision suction grippers, and advanced motion control to autonomously harvest, trim, and pack mushrooms 24/7 – without manual labour.
"We are the very best company on the planet right now using robots to pick mushrooms…," said O'Connor, noting the robots are built in Salmon Arm. "We’ve got seven customers now, we’re trying to build for.
"We’re sold out until February of next year and eager to go from being a company that’s proving it can build a product that solves a really big problem – which is finding people to harvest mushrooms on a mushroom farm – into a company that can scale manufacturing and scale its global presence."
The investment will help grow the business in a couple of ways. O'Connor said it will enable the purchase of necessary parts in advance of receiving orders, to mitigate the wait times involved with supply chains. O'Connor noted 4AG does work with local companies, including Access Precision Machining and Adam Integrated, and will consider what "a deeper partnership looks like with larger orders."
Growth also refers to the physical spaces 4AG currently occupies, which now include three locations in Salmon Arm's Industrial Park and a small office in the Lower Mainland. One of those Salmon Arm spaces is a 32,000 square-foot facility that is currently being renovated to meet the needs of the company and staff. Coming with the reno are a gym, a bar, a cafe and even slides
"We just want to make sure when you’re working here – it’s a lot of work, it’s not easy work, it’s stressful work – that we’re doing what we can to make this an environment where people feel taken care of," said O'Connor, who credited his team and chief operating officer/chief financial officer Chris Payne for the collaborative effort that has positioned 4AG in the world of agricultural technology as "one of the best investments on the planet."
