Faced with labor shortages, sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture are increasingly adopting AI in their automation.
Computer vision startups are looking to seize this opportunity with a range of point solutions for both sectors. From data collection to crop monitoring to harvesting, robots with eyes are entering the fields.
However, a big challenge remains that of implementation: if such solutions are not easy to use, they will not be used.
Belgian startup Robovision thinks it has found a way around this problem. The company wants to industrialize deep learning tools and make them more accessible to companies that are not primarily technology companies. It has built a “no-code” computer vision AI platform that does not require the involvement of software developers or data scientists every step of the way. Robovision doesn’t make robots, but as the name suggests, the company also targets robotics companies that want to develop new machines that support AI-based automation.
In practice, this means that Robovision customers can use its platform to upload data, label it, test their model and deploy it to production. The company says its model can be useful for various use cases, such as recognizing fruits on a supermarket scale, identifying defects in newly manufactured electrical components, and even cutting stems of roses.
Image credits: Robovision
From its base in Belgium, Robovision already serves customers in 45 countries, CEO Thomas Van den Driessche told TechCrunch in an interview. Today, thanks to a recent and significant financing round, the company is expanding to the United States, capitalizing on the interest of industrial and agri-food customers in this gigantic market.
The $42 million Series A round is co-led by Belgian agtech investor Astanor Ventures and Target Global. The latter is an investor based in Berlin and his participation in this fundraising marks a break with other recent media coverage: the controversy over his links with Russian money. Red River West, a French venture capitalist that focuses on financing European startups looking to break into North America, also participated in the funding round.
With a post-money valuation of $180 million, this new round brings the total amount of equity funding raised by Robovision to $65 million, including two converted notes. That still leaves the founders and staff owning more than 50% of Robovision, its chief growth officer, Florian Hendrickx, told TechCrunch via email.
What purpose?
One of the challenges Robovision faces in its expansion is that working with different industries complicates messaging and its go-to-market strategy. On the positive side, learnings and experiences from one application can be applied to another. Robovision, for example, was able to apply some of the 3D deep learning it had developed for tulip disease detection to human lung disease detection during the Covid crisis.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” founder Jonathan Berte told TechCrunch. “It’s part of Robovision’s DNA to find the delicate balance between diversity and focus.”
This DNA comes from Robovision’s history: it was founded in 2012 as a consulting studio, and it took several years before moving towards the B2B platform approach, which also made it more attractive to venture capitalists.
The first traction Robovision gained was in agtech, which represents 50% of its business, Van den Driessche said. Agtech is also the home country of its Series A co-lead investor, Astanor: this company focuses on what it describes as “impact agribusiness”.
Agtech represents a major opportunity due to the labor shortage, but also because of Robovision’s track record: it helps its partner ISO Group plant a billion tulips per year. But other verticals are growing faster for Robovision, Van den Driessche said.
According to Van den Driessche, Robovision is enjoying strong popularity in the life sciences and technology fields. For example, Hitachi uses its platform to produce semiconductor wafers. “I don’t think agriculture will become the most important sector on a large scale,” said Bao-Y Van Cong, partner at Target Global. “I think it will be industrial manufacturing.”
Apple’s recent decision to acquire DarwinAI, an AI startup specializing in component manufacturing supervision, shows growing interest in this area. For Robovision founder Jonathan Berte, it’s also a sign that a toolkit that can support a wide variety of different industrialized applications makes more sense. “Apple would never have (bought this) company if it was just a one-time solution.”
From Ghent to the world
The convertible bonds that Robovision raised in 2022 and 2023 after its pivot mostly came from Dutch and Belgian investors, but it had to look further afield to raise the capital it needed. The amount of capital raised by Robovision in the round would have been more difficult to obtain from the Benelux, or perhaps would have required greater dilution.
Robovision’s Belgian roots are paying off in other ways. “The whole first team was made up of very smart people from Ghent University,” Berte said. Van den Driessche became CEO of Robovision in 2022, and Berte focused on fundraising, partnerships and global expansion.
Robovision’s technological evolution has extended to redesigning the architecture of its computer vision tools in response to customer demand. Because low latency and speed of delivery are requirements in certain environments, the company launched Robovision Edge.
In today’s market, doing more with less has become the key to global competition. “I think the only way to do this is to innovate and become more productive,” Van Cong said.
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