Guardian Agriculture, which is developing an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) systems for commercial-scale sustainable farming that already FAA approval to operate commercially, has launched a Series A fundraising of $20 million. Led by Fall Line Capital, the company says that this round will “support expansion of commercial operations across farms nationwide and accelerate the ramp-up of large-scale manufacturing of its SC1 aircraft”.
"Customers, investors, and regulators recognise that there's no better application of electric, fully-autonomous aircraft than in commercial farming," Guardian Agriculture founder and CEO Adam Bercu said. "We have taken a practical approach to building and deploying our technology that puts us well ahead of other eVTOL developers. As the first and only eVTOL-maker with FAA approval to operate commercially, this funding will allow us to begin and quickly expand commercial operations – on real farms, with paying customers – sooner as we continue to strengthen our team and ramp up aircraft production."
The Guardian SC1 platform – which has more than $100 million in customer orders – is the only autonomous, electric, aerial crop protection system designed specifically for large-scale agriculture. Guardian, which designs and manufactures its system entirely within the US, plans to begin commercial operations in support of its Wilbur-Ellis customer in California this summer.
"Any farmer buying new machinery today can tell you about reliability problems as complexity has far outpaced quality control," Fall Line Capital managing director Clay Mitchell said. "Guardian is the first company to develop unmanned aerial application technology that's made with aviation-grade engineering and manufacturing, which greatly enhances reliability and performance. Even beyond the cost savings and elimination of soil and crop damage, the first thing farmers will notice about Guardian's product is that it works."
Founded in 2017, and with offices in Massachusetts and California, Guardian Agriculture has assembled a team of engineering, autonomy, and manufacturing leaders that previously held executive-level positions at Apple, BAE, Sikorsky, Adobe, Tesla, and Uber.