What is it?
Autonomous robots for agriculture that can spray crops or slash and mow. “Our robots are one-tenth the weight and size of a traditional tractor and work together in ‘swarms’ to get the job done,” says co-founder Andrew Bate, who explains that the apps that drive them unlock new practices that aren’t possible from the back of a tractor. “Robots are the key to transitioning agriculture to higher yields, the more sustainable use of pesticides and fertilisers, plus a reduced environmental footprint.” SwarmConnect is the company’s ecosystem for agtech developers. Farmers use its apps and add their own agriculture-specific attachments to customise their robots. “Some are for vineyards and orchards or for wheat and chickpea fields,” says Jocie, who estimates they’ve reduced the need for about 500 tonnes of pesticide a year because the robots allow for more targeted application.
Where did the idea come from? The Bates are farmers “so it came from the challenges in our own operations”, says Andrew. Over the past 50 years, it became “get big or get out – people bought more farms and bigger tractors, planters and sprayers”. The Bates grow a variety of crops on their 6000 hectares. “We’re deeply immersed in agriculture. We have a whole heap of software developers working here on a commercial farm and that’s something very special in terms of building a tech company.”
How did it get off the ground? “We kicked off in 2012 – before the days when you could drop into Harvey Norman and pick up a drone on your way home from work,” says Jocie, laughing. “We’re not software engineers but Andrew loves building things in his shed. We formed a partnership with The University of Sydney and Queensland University of Technology to develop robots for agriculture, learnt how to build engineering teams and began developing our technology stack.” A fleet of SwarmFarm robots can work autonomously around the clock if needed. “Small farmers can afford the latest technology and larger farmers can have multiples of it. Before, you had to be a certain level of scale to have access to that efficiency – now we can bring the same technology to everyone.” SwarmFarm brought its manufacturing in-house in 2020. “That’s transformed our business,” says Andrew.
Biggest challenge? “Starting a deep-tech company in rural Australia meant there were no other tech founders around for us to learn from,” says Jocie. “It took us two connecting flights to get to Sydney to meet other people who were sharing the same challenges so we had to work hard to build those networks.”
What’s next? “You can’t buy a driverless car yet so it’s pretty cool that agriculture is getting this technology before the automotive industry,” says Andrew. SwarmFarm has sold 28 robots, which have been deployed to farm more than 280,000 hectares of commercial crops. “We’re expanding our manufacturing for international growth. This year we’ll build 50 robots and next year we’ll triple that. We’re talking to investors who want to join us on our journey.”