Abundant Robotics, agricultural robotics company from a Hayward, California, has shut its doors. According to a memo about Abundant’s liquidation obtained by The Robot Report, the company “was unable to develop the market traction necessary to support its business during the pandemic.”
On June 29, 2021, Abundant put up for sale all of its intellectual property and assets. Abundant developed a harvesting robot that initially targeted apples. The system combined computer vision and a vacuum end-effector to select and pick ripe fruit, transferring it into a bin.
Abundant was planning to use a robotics as a service (RaaS) model. It would own, maintain, transport, and operate the robots in exchange for contract payments from farms. Despite this shutdown, the agricultural robotics market has seen a variety of acquisitions and investments in 2021.
Source: therobotreport.com