A fruit-picking robotics business which has seen growing demand as a result of labor shortages in the agricultural sector will unveil a multimillion-pound fundraising involving prominent venture capital investors next week.
Sky News understands that Dogtooth Technologies, which was founded in 2015 by Edward Herbert, Dr. Duncan Robertson, and Matthew Cook, has secured £7 million in a Series A funding round led by 24Haymarket, a private investment network.
Octopus Ventures, LocalGlobe, and a fund overseen by UKRI, the government research body, are also participating in the round.
The new funding will enable Dogtooth, which is based in Cambridgeshire, to accelerate the production and deployment of its "intelligent fruit-picking robots", which perform the same functions as human fruit-pickers.
"Dogtooth's aim is to make more effective use of the existing workforce by providing the tools required to allow farmworkers to be more effective and productive."