AI startup, which offers services to table grape and berry industries, has been purchased by Japan-based Kubota Corporation
Pittsburgh-based Bloomfield Robotics has been acquired by Kubota Corporation, a leading global tractor manufacturer based in Osaka, Japan, through its North American subsidiary, Kubota North America Corporation.
Bloomfield is a startup using advanced imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor the health and performance of specialty crops one plant at a time.
“The vision for Bloomfield from founding was to provide continuous plant-level knowledge to every specialty crop farmer around the world, and this acquisition brings that vision forward at a scale and speed we could not have imagined,” said Mark DeSantis, CEO of Bloomfield Robotics.
Bloomfield’s service includes an advanced camera, on-farm data processing systems, and a grower dashboard providing real-time plant-level assessments.
The service delivers real data designed to transform its customers’ ability to make accurate projections and yield estimations, guiding decision making around harvest timing and workforce deployment.
“We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Bloomfield Robotics, a natural evolution of our successful partnership,” stated Brett McMickell, chief technology officer for Kubota North America.
“Combining AI-driven technology with our legacy quality products will enable Kubota to solve real issues facing agriculture. This proposed acquisition is a key milestone for Kubota’s strategic vision to provide comprehensive smart agriculture solutions.”
“Bloomfield’s journey began with our early research at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, and today we’re delivering cutting-edge hardware and software solutions to customers across seven countries and three continents,” noted Tim Mueller-Sim, co-founder and chief technology officer of Bloomfield.
“Partnering with Kubota will allow us to expand our reach, bringing our innovative services to more farmers globally and empowering them with precise insights into every plant in their fields.”
Bloomfield offers services to wine grape, table grape, juice grape, blueberry, and raspberry growers in the US, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and France, and says it will expand to further specialty crops and countries in the coming months.
“Our goal with Bloomfield from our first day was to enable farmers to produce more with fewer resources,” added Bloomfield co-founder George Kantor.
“To feed the ever-increasing global population, farmers need to increase the productivity of their crops using fewer scarce resources, and Bloomfield provides them the plant-level knowledge and data that they need to do it.”
