Miyazaki-based agricultural startup AGRIST raises Series A funding from 6 companies——with automatic harvesting technology in sight for global expansion

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It turned out that the matter did not include debt. Corrected the title from 7 companies to 6 companies, and deleted the correction line.

Miyazaki-based agritech startup AGRIST announced on the 3rd that it had raised a series A round of funding. Participating in this round are Dogan Beta, Miyazaki Taiyo Capital, ENEOS Innovation Partners, Miyagin Venture Capital, JAFCO Group (TSE: 8595), Incubate Fund , and one undisclosed regional financial institution. Debt Financing from.

This is a follow-up to the company's seed round in 2019. The funding amount for the Series A round has not been disclosed, but according to INITIAL, the company's valuation after the Series A round is over 1.6 billion yen, so it is likely to be around several hundred million yen.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Miyazaki Prefecture accounts for one-fifth of the domestic green pepper production. AGRIST was founded in 2019 in Shintomi-cho, Miyazaki Prefecture, a town with a population of 17,000. Founder Junichi Saito served as the representative director of the Koyu Foundation, a regional trading company established by the Shintomi Town Hall in 2017. known. (At the 2019 Kyushu/Yamaguchi Venture Market featured in BRIDGE, he wore a green shirt from Shintomicho and acted as a judge.)

AGRIST is developing AI and a harvesting robot "L" to solve the labor shortage in agriculture. Aiming for a practical system rather than an expensive robot that can achieve perfect performance, he created a harvesting robot that can move on wires strung in the air rather than on uneven soil inside a greenhouse. Developed with farmers. Harvesting is fully automated through image recognition from the robot's camera.

From this year, AGRIST will start developing an OS "agriss" that will increase the yield of agricultural products. In an interview with BRIDGE, Mr. Saito said that by combining L with agriss, he hopes to develop it into a data-driven robot.

I want to increase the yield of agriculture around the world. As the number of farmers using robots increases, data will be collected from all over the world, and it will be possible to further improve harvesting methods based on that data.

In the future, I would like to be able to operate this not only in Japan but also in areas with food problems such as China and Africa. There have not been many examples of Japanese agriculture transforming world agriculture, and the source being made near rural greenhouses.

AGRIST will work with ENEOS Holdings (TSE: 5020, formerly known as JXTG Holdings at the time of partnership), the parent company of ENEOS Innovation Partners, one of the investors in this round, to develop a farming power generation business. are collaborating with This aims to develop a package in which a solar power generation facility is installed in the upper space of the agricultural production area, and AI automatically increases the harvest rate while generating power. It is also expected to contribute to the development of agriculture and SDGs businesses in non-electrified areas.

AGRIST won 3rd place and Plutus Consulting Award at IVS 2020 Online "LaunchPad". Adopted for the “Smart Agriculture Demonstration Project” in 2020, operation demonstration using 6 farmers and 6 harvesting robots has started. In Kamisu City, Ibaraki Prefecture, which is known as a green pepper production area, we have started a demonstration experiment of an automatic bell pepper harvesting robot, and have received the "DEEP VALLEY Agritech Award" sponsored by Fukaya City, Saitama Prefecture, and plan to introduce an automatic cucumber harvesting robot in the city. It was also selected for the "JA Accelerator Program Phase 2".