4AG Robotics, a British Columbia-based start-up that uses robots to harvest commercially grown mushrooms, has received a C$40 million venture capital investment to further develop its fungi-focused technologies. This successful round brings the start-up's total capital raised to just shy of C$60 million since 2023.
The company, whose name is pronounced like the word "forage," equips robots with AI-run cameras and suction cups, enabling them to pluck, trim, and then pack button mushrooms for distribution. There are currently 16 of 4AG's autonomous machines harvesting mushrooms across the world, operating in Canada, the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands and Australia. However, with its recent C$40 million infusion, 4AG hopes to bring that number up to 100 within the next year.
4AG's robotic innovations come at a time when the agricultural industry is facing widespread labour shortages, with thousands of agricultural jobs going unfilled each year. That dearth has been particularly hard felt in the world of mushroom growing, as the conditions required for harvesting fungi are especially gruelling relative to other agricultural roles. Mushrooms, which grow year-round and can double in size every day, require agricultural workers to tend to them around the clock, typically in dark, damp warehouses that provide the optimal conditions for growth.
Meanwhile, the global demand for fungi is surging, with the industry predicted to surpass C$70 billion in value by 2030, according to 4AG Robotics CEO Chris Payne.
As the world's appetite for mushrooms expands but the number of workers willing to harvest them dwindles, 4AG touts its AI-driven technology as the solution to this tension. With machines that operate 24/7 without interruption, and AI that refines its own techniques for thinning, picking and harvesting mushrooms over time, the company promises to not only lower production costs for individual farmers, but also prevent food waste in a time of global food scarcity.
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