Harvest Automation Closes Series A

Billerica, MA-based robotics company Harvest Automation announced today that it has closed its Series A round of funding at $5.3 million, thanks to a $1.3 million investment from Founder Collective, with offices in New York and Cambridge, MA. The company, whose technology comes from iRobot veterans and is out to automate the commercial harvesting of shrubs, announced the first $4 million of its Series A financing back in January, with money from Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation, Life Sciences Partners, and Cultivian Ventures, which was formerly named the Midpoint Food and Ag Fund. With the newest funding, Founder Collective managing director Eric Paley joins the board of directors at Harvest Automation. The company, formerly known as Q Robotics when it emerged from stealth mode in 2008, is also adding Kiva Systems CEO Mick Mountz and iRobot CEO Colin Angle to its newly formed advisory board.

Author: Erin Kutz

Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.