SAIA Agrobotics raises €10 million for rollout of greenhouse robotics

SAIA Agrobotics, an Ede-based company developing robotics for autonomous greenhouses, has completed a Series A funding round of €10 million. The round brings total capital raised to more than €20 million. The investment will be used for the commercial rollout of the platform and the international expansion the company has planned for 2026.

The round was led by Check24 Impact and supplemented by the EIC Fund, Navus Ventures and Oost NL. Navus Ventures and Oost NL were also involved in earlier rounds, as were SHIFT Invest and Innovation Industries. SAIA Agrobotics was founded in 2017 by Dr. Ruud Barth, Bart van Tuijl and Bas Froon as a spin-off of Wageningen University & Research, and has been formally active since 2019. Its headquarters and R&D facilities are located on Nieuwe Kazernelaan in Ede, close to the Wageningen campus.

How the system works

Most robotics in greenhouse horticulture assume that a robot travels through the greenhouse to inspect or harvest crops. SAIA Agrobotics reverses that logic: in their approach, the plants themselves move towards a fixed robotic station, which then scans and harvests. The company calls this a 'plant-to-robot' model.

According to SAIA, the system targets a 20 percent yield increase and a 50 percent reduction in labour demand within the greenhouse. The robotic station combines image recognition and AI to process crop data and make harvesting decisions. Growers gain a more automated production process without needing to overhaul their entire greenhouse infrastructure.

Earlier this year, Growers United put the first components of the system into operation. This makes the company SAIA Agrobotics' first commercial customer, a step that marks the transition from development to operational deployment at an actual grower.

What the investors say

Georg Heusgen, director at Check24, describes the investment as consistent with Check24 Impact's focus on technology that addresses concrete problems in sectors such as food and agriculture. Jaap Zijlstra of Navus Ventures and Wout Morrenhof of Oost NL, both long-standing backers of the company, are continuing their commitment. Svetoslava Georgieva, chair of the EIC Fund Board, points to the broader European relevance of automation in food production as the context for the EIC Fund's participation.

The EIC Fund is the investment vehicle of the European Innovation Council and focuses on European deeptech companies that have converted public research funding into commercial technology. The EIC Fund's participation fits that pattern, given SAIA's WUR background.

Plans for 2026

With the new funding, SAIA Agrobotics aims to scale up deployments with growers and expand into markets outside the Netherlands. The company has not yet communicated in detail when and where that international rollout will take shape. Commercial deployment with multiple customers is planned for 2026.

CEO Ruud Barth indicates that the round enables the company to grow from a proven technology into a scalable business model. The greenhouse horticulture sector, with the Netherlands among the world's largest exporters of horticultural products, has been facing a tight labour market for years. Automating labour-intensive tasks such as harvesting and crop monitoring is therefore high on the agenda for large and medium-sized growers.

For the Dutch agri-tech scene, the round signals that investors are willing to commit substantial capital to robotics that has moved beyond the prototype stage. The combination of a Dutch deeptech spin-off, European public co-financing through the EIC Fund, and commercial investors such as Check24 Impact illustrates how that funding landscape increasingly looks in practice for companies seeking to bridge the gap between laboratory and market.