The Philly Company That Makes Autonomous Farm Robots Just Raised $24M

Burro hopes to have 800 plant- and produce-hauling vehicles in operation by the end of the year.

Philly’s small-but-growing robotics presence is attracting national attention, as evidenced by a big cash infusion for a company named after a hard-working beast of burden.

Autonomous robotics company Burro, formerly known as Augean Robotics, announced it raised $24 million Series B. The round was led by Catalyst Investors and Translink Capital with previous investors S2G Ventures, Toyota Ventures, F-Prime Capital and Cibus Capital also contributing.

Burro robots work alongside humans at nurseries, vineyards and farms, helping to move produce and plants. The fresh funding will go toward scaling the business by selling its product through more dealers, launching new products, and hiring for Burro’s commercial, product and engineering teams, Burro CEO Charlie Andersen said. The funding round ran from August to December 2023 and follows an $11 million Series A raised in 2021.

“[The goal is] expanding our engineering and product team, expanding our sales and go-to-market team and then investing in efficiency,” Andersen told Technical.ly, “so that as we grow, we’re not growing with unbounded cost increases at the same time.”

The Callowhill-based, 44-person company is already pursuing these goals with the launch of its new product, Burro Grande, this week. This autonomous vehicle can carry and tow more weight than the original product, which Andersen calls a “pallet scale vehicle.”

The original Burro can carry 500 pounds and tow 2,000 pounds, while Burro Grande can carry 1,500 pounds and tow 5,000 pounds.

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