Orchard Robotics Raises $22M to Power AI-Driven Farm Vision for Specialty Crops

Inspired by his grandparents, who were apple farmers in China, Charlie Wu began exploring how technology could transform agriculture while studying computer science at Cornell University—a school renowned for its agricultural programs. “I got to meet fruit professors who are the best in the world at what they do,” Wu told TechCrunch. “Through talking to them, I realized even the largest farms in the nation basically have no idea what is actually growing out in their fields.” Determined to bridge the gap between farming and technology, Wu dropped out of Cornell, became a Thiel Fellow, and launched Orchard Robotics in 2022. The company uses AI-powered computer vision to help fruit growers monitor their crops with unprecedented precision. On Wednesday, Orchard Robotics announced it has raised $22 million in a Series A round led by Quiet Capital and Shine Capital, with participation from returning investors including General Catalyst and Contrary. While the concept of using computer vision for specialty crops isn’t new, Wu points out that many of the largest U.S. farms still rely on manual sampling to assess crop health and make operational decisions. This approach is inherently limited—farmers typically inspect only a small fraction of their fields, leading to inaccurate estimates of fruit yield, quality, and health. “If you don’t know what you’re growing in the field, you don’t know how much chemical to apply to it. You don’t know how many workers to hire to harvest it. You don’t know what you can actually sell and market,” Wu explained. Orchard’s solution involves a compact, rugged camera that mounts on tractors or other farm vehicles. As the operator drives through the field, the camera captures ultra-high-resolution images of fruit, vines, and trees. These images are processed by AI to assess fruit size, color, ripeness, and overall health. The data is then uploaded to Orchard’s cloud-based platform, which serves as a centralized dashboard for farmers. It enables data-driven decisions—such as identifying trees that need pruning, thinning, or additional fertilization—improving both efficiency and yield. Orchard is already being used on major apple and grape farms across the U.S. and has recently expanded its services to include blueberries, cherries, almonds, pistachios, citrus, and strawberries. The company operates in a competitive space. Direct rivals include Bloomfield Robotics, which was acquired by farm equipment giant Kubota last year, as well as early-stage startups Vivid Robotics and Green Atlas, all of which use similar tractor-mounted imaging systems. Wu acknowledges that the current market for fruit and vegetable data is relatively small—around $1.5 billion—but he believes future advancements in AI will allow the system to go beyond data collection and into autonomous decision-making. His vision for Orchard is to evolve from a data provider into a full-fledged farm operating system. “Our ambition is to be a lot more than just collecting data,” he said. “We want to collect the data, build an operating system on top of it, and eventually own all the workflows on the farm.” He draws inspiration from Flock Safety, a public safety startup now valued at $7.5 billion, which started with license plate recognition and expanded into gunshot detection and video analytics. “That’s the kind of trajectory we’re aiming for,” Wu said. “We’re building the foundation for the future of smart, data-driven farming.”