Advanced Farm Technologies, Inc.
Davis, California developer of robotic strawberry and apple harvesters whose assets and IP were acquired by CNH after its 2024 apple pilots.
Advanced Farm Technologies, Inc., which traded as Advanced Farm, was a Davis, California agricultural robotics company that developed autonomous harvesting machines for specialty crops, first strawberries and later apples. Its founders included Kyle Cobb (CEO) and Carl Allendorph; several co-founders had previously built Greenbotics, a solar-panel cleaning robotics company acquired by SunPower in 2013. The company was founded in 2017.
The company's first commercial product was the TX Robotic Strawberry Harvester, built on its T-6 platform. The machine picked ripe strawberries from in-soil beds using computer vision and machine learning to judge ripeness, and handled fruit with food-grade, sanitisable soft robotic grippers designed to keep stems and calyxes in the correct position. It was designed to operate up to 24 hours a day. In 2019 Advanced Farm described itself as the first U.S. company to commercialise robotic strawberry harvesting, and it offered harvesting as a service to California growers. Named grower partners included GoodFarms, The Oppenheimer Group (Oppy) and Naturipe, and the company reported more than US$70 million in customer commitments in 2021. It then adapted the platform for apple harvesting; Washington state growers tested the robotic apple picker during the 2024 harvest season.
Advanced Farm raised a US$2 million seed round in November 2018, a US$7.5 million Series A in August 2019 led by Yamaha Motor Ventures and Laboratory Silicon Valley, and a US$25 million Series B in September 2021 led by Catapult Ventures with Kubota Corporation, Yamaha Motor Corporation and Impact Ventures participating, for about US$34 million in total. CNH Industrial made a minority investment in October 2023.
CNH Industrial subsequently acquired the intellectual property and assets of Advanced Farm; the transaction was reported in April 2025. CEO Kyle Cobb cited a difficult investment climate for agtech startups as the reason for the sale. CNH said a large majority of Advanced Farm's technical team would join its technology and innovation divisions and that it intends to continue commercialising the harvesting platform as part of its robotic harvesting work. Advanced Farm is therefore no longer operating as an independent supplier; its harvesting technology now sits inside CNH.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
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Contact Advanced Farm Technologies, Inc.
WEBSITE
https://advanced.farmHEADQUARTERS
United States
Company Facts
Founded
2017
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
North America
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Subsidiary / Acquired
Funding Total
-
