Yamaha invests in ag-tech firm

The Yamaha Motor Company has invested $12 million in Tauranga-based agricultural and robotics firm Robotics Plus, which makes machinery for automatically picking and sorting fruit.

That takes Yamaha to a $14.7m investment in Robotics Plus, following a $2m partnership in March, Robotics Plus says.

“This investment will allow us to take the company to the next level and attract and retain the world class talent we need,” chairman and co-founder Steve Saunders says. “To stay ahead of the opportunity we need to scale quickly, not just with our apple packers that are already in market, but also with our new UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) platform technology and other projects under development.”

He’s also establishing a US subsidiary of the company.

Its Japanese investment follows the award of a growth grant from Crown agency Callaghan Innovation earlier this year.

“To meet the significant and increasing agriculture demands of today and tomorrow, including agricultural labour shortage globally, we need to create sophisticated and precision robotics and automation technologies that will transform the agricultural industries,” Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley chief executive officer Hiro Saijo says.

Robotics Plus will leverage Yamaha Motor’s experience, knowledge and technologies in outdoor vehicles, factory automation, robotics, design and manufacturing.