Naware founder Mark Boysen first tried to kill weeds using a drone and a 200-watt laser.
While he and some friends were toying with the idea for a startup, he was thinking about how a family in North Dakota had lost three members to cancer, which the family suspected had something to do with chemicals in the groundwater. Finding a way to kill weeds without chemicals seemed like a solid option.
But the laser was a dead end. In an interview with TechCrunch, he said there were too many risks of causing a fire. After a lot of prototyping with ideas like cryogenic temperatures, the solution he settled on, which he showed off at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 earlier this year, is steam.
Booysen’s company has developed a system that uses computer vision to find weeds in lawns, fields and golf courses, and kills them using only evaporated water. It can be attached to lawn mowers, tractors, and even ATVs. For now, Mr. Naware is flexible, and Mr. Boysen is clearly eager to spread his ideas as quickly as the weeds he is trying to kill.
In a world of agent AI and multibillion-dollar software companies, Naware stands out as a classic garage startup story. Boysen said the team first tested the use of steam by ordering a “Rinky Dink” clothing steamer from Amazon. I then ordered 7 more pieces.
“They’re not really industrial products,” Boysen said. “So there’s a lot of research being done to help develop that, to get to the point of, ‘How do we make this effective and reproducible so that it can scale?'”
While developing the steamer technology was one challenge, Boyesen said the bigger challenge may have been identifying the weeds. It is well established that artificial intelligence software can be trained to accurately recognize objects and patterns, but the “green vs. green” problem was difficult, especially because the software needed to recognize weeds in real time while the rig wandered across the lawn, he said. (Yes, I’m using an Nvidia GPU.)
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But he thinks they’re getting there. He said Naware is targeting companies that provide turf care for sports fields and golf courses, claiming the company can save those customers “$100,000 to $250,000 in chemicals alone.”
Plus, he said, customers will save money because they won’t have to pay people whose sole job is to spray chemicals. Naware is running paid pilots to test and dial in the product, but Booysen’s proposal is already attracting potential partners, he said.
“We’re pursuing strategic partnerships. We’re in talks with a $5 billion company that manufactures equipment that is interested in our products. And we’ve had a few conversations about it. I can’t name names, but you’ll figure it out,” he laughed.
Boysen said success requires three things: partnerships, securing patents and funding. Boysen is building Naware himself for now, but said he will raise his first round of funding in the coming months.
“We have to get enough funding rounds to crush anyone else who would even consider it,” he said. “I have to deliver on the promise that it can kill weeds and that it’s effective. And we deliver on that. I’m not worried about that.”
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