Surrey based Fox Robotics receives investment from Henley Business Angels
News | 02-03-2022
Fox Robotics, an agri-tech company specialising in the development, manufacture and sale of autonomous robots in agriculture, has received investment from multiple members of Henley Business Angels, contributing to a total funding round of £145,000.
Fox Robotics has developed an autonomous mobile robot that is capable of traversing rough terrain, which will tackle agriculture challenges globally. The company is focusing on the UK’s soft fruit market, which has an annual turnover of more than £610 million. Seasonal workers, usually Eastern European, carry out demanding labour in this industry; picking the fruit and transporting produce from greenhouses and poly-tunnels to the collection points is carried out manually, which is time-consuming and inefficient. With the compounded labour shortage in the sector, Fox Robotics solves these fundamental logistics issues by selling and leasing their autonomous robots to fruit growers. With the use of the robots, pickers no longer need to leave their stations to queue at a collection point and can instead focus on picking more, with the bonus of the robots tracking extensive amounts of data in real-time. The technology also ensures that the picked produced is quickly transported to the chilling and packing house, ensuring freshness and taste.
The company has secured their first paid pilots with one of the UK’s largest blueberry farmers, a member of the UK’s leading berry and stone fruit production and marketing group Berry Gardens. There is additional room for Fox Robotics to expand into other areas of agriculture, horticulture and husbandry.
Fox Robotics plans to use the invested money to step up their research and development by hiring senior engineers experienced in software, robotics, electronics and artificial intelligence. Increasing sales and marketing is also a focus of the investment, with recruiting a new Sales Manager a priority.
Paula Acevedo, co-founder and Marketing Manager of Fox Robotics, commented: “It has been an incredible and successful experience to have worked closely with the Henley Business Angels and Jurek. We are incredibly pleased to have had such significant interest from several angels who genuinely understand and admire the work that we are doing. We have an exciting road ahead, and we look forward to making meaningful changes to the industry.”
Jurek Sikorski, Founder and Director of HBA, was similarly positive, adding: “Fox Robotics had attracted considerable interest from members and guests of Henley Business Angels. Seeing the robot at work and how it can save time and money and well as collect valuable data was very persuasive. We expect Fox Robotics to make significant inroads into a growing market at a time when labour shortages are a serious issue.”
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