Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Swap Robotics, an Ontario-based ag-tech startup, raised $7 million in seed funding.
Driving the news: SOLV Energy led the all-equity round but is not getting a board seat as part of the deal, CEO Tim Lichti tells Axios. SOSV, Green Ventures and a syndicate of angel investors, mostly from the solar industry, also participated in the round, Lichti says.
- Swap Robotics plans to add a debt component to its financing in the "coming months," Lichti says.
How it works: Swap makes solar-powered autonomous robots that can maintain vegetation or plow snow using a set of interchangeable attachments.
State of play: Startups labeled as "ag tech" comprise a wide variety of specializations, ranging from bioengineered seeds to irrigation to robotic field maintenance.
- The fact that ag tech covers a broad range of technology, from genetic engineering to robotics and soil biology, has bolstered it against some of the private fundraising pull-backs that other climate tech areas have experienced.
