Prefiro GmbH
"We are revolutionizing the harvesting of ground-level crops through intelligent robotics."
KIT spin-off from Weingarten, Germany, founded 2024, developing an AI-guided harvest module with millimetre-accurate cutting for asparagus and similar crops.
Prefiro GmbH is a German agricultural robotics startup based in Weingarten (Baden), Baden-Wuerttemberg, registered at the Mannheim local court under HRB 752351. It was founded in October 2024 as a spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) by students of KIT and the University of Hohenheim, after support from the EXIST and Young Innovators programmes. The managing directors are co-founders Lorenzo Di Leo (CEO) and Frieder Matter (CTO); the team had seven full-time members as of October 2025.
The company develops robotic harvesting for ground-level crops, starting with asparagus. Its system is a harvest module mounted on a carrier vehicle that can work with conventional, new or autonomous tractors. Image recognition combined with precision actuators performs millimetre-accurate cutting. The first complete machine was presented at expoSE in November 2025, and two machines are planned for use on partner farms during a 2026 pilot phase. Prefiro received its first patent, covering a new cutting-head mechanism, in November 2025.
Funding has come from a pre-seed round in December 2024 with business angels and the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the EXIST and Young Innovators programmes and the NBank HTI programme (ERDF/STEP). Partners include KIT, the University of Hohenheim, the Seedhouse accelerator and NBank. Prefiro won the Innovation Award and Audience Award at the CyberChampions Awards of Cyberforum in October 2024 and was named AI Startup of the Year 2025 by t3n at the data:unplugged festival.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
Prefiro Harvest Module (asparagus)
Carrier-mounted AI harvest module with precision cutting head for asparagus; 2026 pilot.
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Contact Prefiro GmbH
WEBSITE
https://www.prefiro.de/enPHONE
+49 152 31785201HEADQUARTERS
Germany
Company Facts
Founded
2024
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Early-Stage VC
Funding Total
-
