Bonsai Robotics Closes New Series A

Bonsai Robotics has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Bison Ventures, with participation from new investor Cibus Capital and existing investors Acre Venture Partners, Congruent Ventures, Fall Line Capital, E14 Fund, SNR, and Serra Ventures.

Bonsai Robotics develops vision-based autonomous technology for agricultural applications, specializing in AI-driven automation for orchards and other challenging farming environments. The company’s customers include orchard growers and agricultural equipment manufacturers seeking to increase efficiency, reduce labor costs, and improve yield.

For example, the company’s flagship product, Visionsteer, integrates computer vision, AI, and autonomous vehicle control, allowing tractors and other farming equipment to navigate autonomously—even in GNSS-denied environments—without relying on GPS or internet connectivity.

GNSS-denied environments are areas where GPS and other satellite navigation systems fail due to signal blockages, interference, or poor coverage. In agriculture, these include dense orchards and vineyards, forestry plantations, and mountainous or hilly farmland.

Visionsteer is designed to function in dusty, dark, and uneven terrain and is particularly suited for tree nut orchards. The technology also provides data for crop analysis and sends real-time notifications, enabling growers to monitor plant health, detect abnormalities, and automate farm management.

To date, Bonsai Robotics has deployed over 40 units across the United States and Australia, collecting operational data from more than 500,000 acres. Founded in 2022 by Tyler Niday, the company is headquartered in San Jose, California.

“We have made significant progress building our AI model and data set for autonomous orchard management since our seed round of funding a year ago,” said Mr. Niday. “Additionally, this capital will allow us to continue to expand our partnerships with manufacturers and growers by delivering innovative physical AI technology solutions that address the most pressing challenges in agriculture today.”

According to Mr. Niday, the new Series A capital will be used to enhance Bonsai’s software capabilities, expand its physical AI platform and data set, develop additional OEM partnerships, and accelerate commercialization efforts.

The agricultural industry is increasingly turning to automation to address labor shortages and efficiency challenges. With the global agricultural robotics market expected to grow from $13.5 billion in 2023 to $40.1 billion by 2030 (Markets and Markets, 2023), technology is playing a growing role in farming. In the U.S., the farm labor workforce has shrunk by nearly 10% over the past decade (USDA, 2021), making automation a necessity, particularly in specialty crop farming, where tasks like orchard management, pruning, and harvesting remain labor-intensive. Vision-based autonomous technologies, like those from Bonsai Robotics, are helping growers reduce costs, boost efficiency, and improve crop yields. With global food demand projected to rise by 50% by 2050 (FAO, 2021), such innovations are becoming crucial to meeting the industry’s needs.

According to Bison Ventures, agricultural technology ventures face unique challenges that often deter investors, including tech entrepreneurs who lack agricultural experience, a customer base that is both sophisticated and skeptical of new technologies, the need to scale across multiple crop types to address sufficiently large markets, and a lack of sizable exits, as most venture-backed agricultural acquisitions occur before startups can reach meaningful scale.

Bison’s  investment in Bonsai Robotics overcomes these challenges by launching its platform with a focus on tree nut harvesting equipment—a sector with a strong customer base, OEM demand, and validated ROI. Additionally, Bonsai has partnered with OEMs to leverage existing hardware, sales forces, and maintenance teams, creating a capital-light SaaS business with high gross margins and recurring revenue. Lastly, Bonsai’s co-founders bring technical expertise and direct industry experience, having worked at John Deere and Orchard Machinery Corporation.

San Francisco-headquartered Bison Ventures, the lead investor in this round, is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in companies using science and deep technology to address needs in the biology, climate, and AI sectors.