Small Robot Company - An opportunity for farmers to own shares in us

[SmallRobotCo]

Hi - I'm Sam, fourth generation arable farmer and co-founder of Small Robot Company.

We're a really exciting British AgriTech Startup trying to change the way we think about and manage our farms.

When I founded this business in 2017, I wanted farmers to be right at the centre of everything we do, to make sure that we are really solving problems for farmers.

We've come a long way in the last two years, but we still have a lot of development work to do before we get there. Which is why I am asking farmers to support us.

There's loads happening in AgriTech at the moment, but it is very rare that farmers get the opportunity to buy shares in these new businesses or to have a say in how these new technologies shape their industry and their businesses.

We don't think that that's right.

At Small Robot Company, you can do both. Very soon, there will be an opportunity to buy shares in Small Robot Company. As an investor, you can also join the Small Robot Company "100 Club" and be one of our first 100 customers, with a chance to get involved in deciding how these robots work on your farm.

We will shortly be launching a Crowdcube campaign, but you have to be on our mailing list to get first access.

If you're interested, send us an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll send you all the details you need.

Please leave a comment on this video or get in touch if you have any questions. I'll post another video with more details soon.

 

[Deereone]

Where are you based?

 

[SmallRobotCo]

We're based in Portsmouth at the moment, moving to just outside Salisbury in the New Year.

 

[Nearly]

@Clive

 

[Clive]

@Clive

I'm already in contact with these guys, first met with them about 12 months ago ! They are doing some interesting stuff

 

[SmallRobotCo]

Thanks Clive - if anyone wants some more info, please send me some questions.

 

[Fuzzy]

Hi - I'm Sam, fourth generation arable farmer and co-founder of Small Robot Company.

We're a really exciting British AgriTech Startup trying to change the way we think about and manage our farms.

When I founded this business in 2017, I wanted farmers to be right at the centre of everything we do, to make sure that we are really solving problems for farmers.

We've come a long way in the last two years, but we still have a lot of development work to do before we get there. Which is why I am asking farmers to support us.

There's loads happening in AgriTech at the moment, but it is very rare that farmers get the opportunity to buy shares in these new businesses or to have a say in how these new technologies shape their industry and their businesses.

We don't think that that's right.

At Small Robot Company, you can do both. Very soon, there will be an opportunity to buy shares in Small Robot Company. As an investor, you can also join the Small Robot Company "100 Club" and be one of our first 100 customers, with a chance to get involved in deciding how these robots work on your farm.

We will shortly be launching a Crowdcube campaign, but you have to be on our mailing list to get first access.

If you're interested, send us an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll send you all the details you need.

Please leave a comment on this video or get in touch if you have any questions. I'll post another video with more details soon.

Can you tell me who owns the company ? Are you the founder and owner ?

 

[SmallRobotCo]

Can you tell me who owns the company ? Are you the founder and owner ?

Hi - yes there are three shareholders at the moment. Myself, my co-founder Ben and our first employee Joe (who is the guy who knows how to build robots). We have a team of 9 in total now, and as part of this funding round we will also give shares to the other two members of our senior team and open up an options pool for our team, giving them the opportunity to buy into the business too.

Have you heard of SRC before? What do you think of what we are trying to do?

 

[Bald Rick]

Got a bit of a puff in last weeks Farmers Weekly

Thought it quite ambitious that a robot the size of a spaniel can cover 250ha in two weeks but then I’m a dairy farmer

 

[SmallRobotCo]

Got a bit of a puff in last weeks Farmers Weekly

Thought it quite ambitious that a robot the size of a spaniel can cover 250ha in two weeks but then I’m a dairy farmer

Ha - seems a lot, but it will be able to do about 1ha per hour in the next few months (current speeds are a bit slower than that) and it will be able to work 24hrs per day, so should be able to cover a 250ha farm in just over 10 days.

Our speeds will go up as the months go by, as will the extent to which we can automate functions such as changing batteries. So 250ha in two weeks is very achievable and it will get quicker than that.

 

[Bald Rick]

Ha - seems a lot, but it will be able to do about 1ha per hour in the next few months (current speeds are a bit slower than that) and it will be able to work 24hrs per day, so should be able to cover a 250ha farm in just over 10 days.

Our speeds will go up as the months go by, as will the extent to which we can automate functions such as changing batteries. So 250ha in two weeks is very achievable and it will get quicker than that.

There you go. Amazing
But all FWs article said was that it is able to distinguish between weeds and wheat. Didn’t say what it did with the info
Microspraying?

 

[Fuzzy]

Hi - yes there are three shareholders at the moment. Myself, my co-founder Ben and our first employee Joe (who is the guy who knows how to build robots). We have a team of 9 in total now, and as part of this funding round we will also give shares to the other two members of our senior team and open up an options pool for our team, giving them the opportunity to buy into the business too.

Have you heard of SRC before? What do you think of what we are trying to do?

I think if people are going to take you seriously you need to update the info held at companies house to reflect what you have just told me. Currently Ben is shown as a shareholder and another company (which has significant debt) in which you appear to have no shareholding or voting rights.

I think what you are trying to achieve is great, imo to succeed you need to initially adapt an existing small (30-40hp) tractor fitted with a drill/planter (say 1m ish wide) to demonstrate that you have the technology for precise operation and control. Then you need to harvest the crop !!

 

[SmallRobotCo]

There you go. Amazing
But all FWs article said was that it is able to distinguish between weeds and wheat. Didn’t say what it did with the info
Microspraying?

Electrocuting the weeds to start with, but in time we want to be micro-spraying too.

The plan for the next 12 months is to increase the speed and robustness of our "Tom" robot, which is doing the monitoring work, so that is covering the ground as described above. That data then gets fed into "Wilma" who is the brains of the operation (always have a woman in charge - rule no.1) and she recognises the difference between the wheat and the weeds. If things go well, we should be able to sub categorise the weeds as well, so that it is not identified as a weed, but it is identified as blackgrass.

We will be able to locate the weeds to within 2cm and then present that as a highly accurate weed map to farmers, so on its own it could be a useful service that makes existing equipment more efficient.

Then the plan for 2020 is to continue the development of our prototype weeding robot so that it takes that highly accurate weed map, goes out into the field and kills those weeds without the need to use chemicals. If we can identify blackgrass using our AI by the end of 2019, we should be able to kill the blackgrass without chemicals by the end of 2020.

There are also applications for this in grassland management too, of course. Our focus at the moment is wheat, but when we have the weed killing robot up and running we should be able to identify docks, thistles and ragwort, for example, and kill them without chemicals too.

 

[SmallRobotCo]

I think if people are going to take you seriously you need to update the info held at companies house to reflect what you have just told me. Currently Ben is shown as a shareholder and another company (which has significant debt) in which you appear to have no shareholding or voting rights.

I think what you are trying to achieve is great, imo to succeed you need to initially adapt an existing small (30-40hp) tractor fitted with a drill/planter (say 1m ish wide) to demonstrate that you have the technology for precise operation and control. Then you need to harvest the crop !!

Companies House is accurate - the other company is my family farm, in which I am a shareholder and do have voting rights so not sure which bit you're looking at....but happy to clarify if I can...

Thanks for the support on what we are trying to achieve. Can't agree with you about the way to implement this though. One of the key reasons for me founding this business is that I believe farming has become stuck in an incremental gains mindset. By this I mean that we are stuck with thinking about what we have got and then looking for ways to improve it by 5% or 10%. I don't think farming is 5-10% away from being fixed - we need to be thinking bigger.

The problem with starting with an existing small tractor is that there is a level of accuracy beyond which it cannot go. The tractor was not designed to be accurate - the tractor was designed to be fast and powerful, and to limit the amount of time that a human being had to sit in the seat of it.

That's why we need to different tools to do the job - we need to re-think the whole system so that we can do things 10x more accurately, not 10% more accurately.

I'm not saying, by the way, that we can achieve that now - but that is the way that this technology is leading.

 

[Y Fan Wen]

I am totally hypnotised by the thought of releasing one of your machines into one of my permanent grassland fields and, like a robot mower, it tools around zapping the thistles, docks and rushes while I sit in my deck chair sipping something long and cool!!!!

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Electrocuting the weeds to start with, but in time we want to be micro-spraying too.

The plan for the next 12 months is to increase the speed and robustness of our "Tom" robot, which is doing the monitoring work, so that is covering the ground as described above. That data then gets fed into "Wilma" who is the brains of the operation (always have a woman in charge - rule no.1) and she recognises the difference between the wheat and the weeds. If things go well, we should be able to sub categorise the weeds as well, so that it is not identified as a weed, but it is identified as blackgrass.

We will be able to locate the weeds to within 2cm and then present that as a highly accurate weed map to farmers, so on its own it could be a useful service that makes existing equipment more efficient.

Then the plan for 2020 is to continue the development of our prototype weeding robot so that it takes that highly accurate weed map, goes out into the field and kills those weeds without the need to use chemicals. If we can identify blackgrass using our AI by the end of 2019, we should be able to kill the blackgrass without chemicals by the end of 2020.

There are also applications for this in grassland management too, of course. Our focus at the moment is wheat, but when we have the weed killing robot up and running we should be able to identify docks, thistles and ragwort, for example, and kill them without chemicals too.

Whilst I am in no way belittling your project, in fact I think it’s all brilliant, killing black grass with electricity whilst trying not to kill the wheat seems like a big ambition.

 

[SmallRobotCo]

I am totally hypnotised by the thought of releasing one of your machines into one of my permanent grassland fields and, like a robot mower, it tools around zapping the thistles, docks and rushes while I sit in my deck chair sipping something long and cool!!!!

It's an exciting thought isn't it? We're going to try hard to make it happen - farmers waste so much time struggling to stay on top of weeds, it would be great to free them up so that they can focus on doing other things - maybe sitting in a deck chair but maybe growing their business in other ways.

 

[SmallRobotCo]

Whilst I am in no way belittling your project, in fact I think it’s all brilliant, killing black grass with electricity whilst trying not to kill the wheat seems like a big ambition.

Yeah absolutely it's a big ambition but much better to aim for something amazing than to aim for something easier. I firmly believe that we will get there - even if, in 2020, we couldn't guarantee that we weren't killing the occasional wheat plant but we were killing blackgrass, don't you think that would be a better result than what we have now with chemical control?

 

[Chae1]

Whilst I am in no way belittling your project, in fact I think it’s all brilliant, killing black grass with electricity whilst trying not to kill the wheat seems like a big ambition.

Hope it doesn't spread lime!

 

[Cab-over Pete]

I did wonder that when I read about it in FW!!