Strawberry is the most popular berries in the United States for both consumers and farmers. It is also a consistent list of the environmental working group’s “dirty dozen” list, some of the most pesticide-dependent fruits, and the most contaminated produce.
San Luis Obispo, a California-based Tric Robotics, believes strawberry farmers will help reduce chemical use with the help of UV light and robots.
The startup has built a fleet of robots using UV-C lights, a form of ultraviolet rays that are largely blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere, to kill bacteria and damage pest populations. Tractor-sized autonomous robots can handle up to 100 acres and use a vacuum designed to suck out bug residues without damaging crops.
Rather than selling directly to farmers, the company operates robots on the farm overnight as a farm. Because this model seemed like the right thing to gain traction right away, so Adam Stager, co-founder and CEO of TRIC, told TechCrunch.
“We did a lot with farmers to understand what the right way to launch technology and what the right business model was,” Stager said. “We found out that a lot of farmers pay for pest disease management as a service, so they found that the company came and sprayed, and all we’re doing is replacing it as a service model.”
Stager said the company is very focused on what farmers want, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. In fact, the trick didn’t focus on agriculture in the first place.
Stager started the company in 2017 after earning his PhD in Robotics. The company initially focused on 3D printed robots for the SWAT team. In 2020, Stager decided to travel to areas that he thought would have more impacts and began to concentrate on agriculture.
TechCrunch Events
San Francisco
|
October 27th-29th, 2025
“I just really wanted to answer the question. If you die tomorrow, are you satisfied with what you achieved in your life?” Stager said. “I had to do something impactful that could help a lot of people feel worthy of themselves. I stumbled on farming on that journey. [and realized] It’s a place where we can impact so many people, almost everyone. ”
Stager contacted the USDA (USDA) to find out from the doctoral program that many excellent technologies never leave the lab and see if there are any technologies that can help him commercialize.
He led to the USDA program that brought people like Stager and scientists who haven’t yet commercialized their work together. This outreach united him with UV light technology, which was the basis of Tric’s robotics.
“We loaded two robots built into the garage on top of the SUV,” Stager said of him and co-founder Vishnu Somasundaram. “We had two connections that helped USDA build together with the farmers who gave us a little bit of land in 2021. That really started when this company started. It was an eight-month cross-country journey, deploying two robots and getting these farmers this incredible data.”
The company, which now counts Ryan Berard as its third co-founder, is working with four large strawberry producers to deploy nine robots and three more.
Tric Robotics recently attracted a $5.5 million seed round led by Garage Capital, Todd and Rahul Capital, Lucas Venture Group and version 1 ventures with participation from other investment companies and individual angels.
The company plans to put in the money to continue its fleet of autonomous robots, and Tric hopes to eventually move to other types of crops as well.
“I think there’s a really, really bright future. [agriculture] Technology said. “I think people should know that things are really heading in a great direction.
Source link
