Kubota Corporation (Head Office: Naniwa-ku, Osaka, Japan; President and Representative Director: Yuichi Kitao; hereinafter, “Kubota”) announced today that it has invested in FarmX, Inc. (hereinafter, “FarmX”), a U.S. based start-up with technological expertise in sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) that offers an all-in-one platform to manage and automate irrigation, minimize crop stress, and maximize yield.
Through this investment in FarmX, Kubota intends to contribute to efficiency and profitability enhancement in farm management in the U.S. and other countries.

1.Background and aims

• In June of last year, Kubota launched its Innovation Center as a division for the pursuit of open innovation based on coordination with external partners. We are currently pursuing negotiations for collaboration with startups, including Advanced Farm Technologies, Inc. and Abundant Robotics, Inc., in which we invested in August 2019 and January 2020, respectively.
• One focus area of the Innovation Center is “farm management,” the demand for which is rising among fruit, vegetable, grape, and nut growers. This interest led to the decision to invest in FarmX, which provides crop management services based on its advanced modeling and technologies that use AI, Machine Learning and IoT sensors to provide data, analysis and predictions.
  FarmX’s solution helps farmers’ profitability by increasing yields while decreasing the need for labor, water, and power.
• With this investments, Kubota aims to reinforce its development of platforms for realizing precision farming for fruit, vegetable, grape and nut growers and contribute to the enhancement of efficiency and profitability of farm management in the U.S. and elsewhere, keeping collaboration with the two other U.S. based startups in which it has a stake in mind.

• 

  FarmX dashboard showing sensor status and locations in a typical California farm

• 

  Drip irrigation system in a typical California vineyard

2.About FarmX

Name	FarmX, Inc.
Establishment	November 2014
Location	California, the U.S.
Business	All-in-one platform to manage and automate irrigation, minimize crop stress and maximize yield

【For reference】

About “Advanced Farm Technologies”

Name	Advanced Farm Technologies, Inc.
Establishment	2018
Location	California, the U.S.
Line of business	Development of automated strawberry harvesting robots, contract harvesting services

About “Abundant Robotics”

Name	Abundant Robotics, Inc.
Establishment	2016
Location	California, the U.S.
Business	Development of automated apple harvesting robots and contract harvesting services

Share This Article