Even though the only thing the robot can do right now is pull weeds, Aigen is adamant it isn’t building a weed-whacking robot. It claims to be on a mission to terraform the earth, and says it has a path toward making agriculture carbon positive. It must have made a compelling argument, because it just announced a $4 million seed round led by NEA, with participation from AgFunder, Global Founders Capital and ReGen Ventures.
The company is building solar-powered, autonomous robots that can zoom around in fields, using computer vision to tell friend from foe and plant from weed. In its first incarnation, the robot — in a fine “hot dog / not hot dog” impersonation — simply bumbles about, covering up to three acres of farmland per day.
“My relatives are farmers in Minnesota, and I’ve been talking with them for quite some …
