The first company to launch out of incubator Atlanta Ventures Studio is already making moves toward mowing down the competition. Greenzie builds software to automate commercial lawnmowers, and it announced Tuesday the addition of a $4 million funding round to put toward its tech.
Atlanta Ventures led the round with additional participation from investors TechSquare Labs and Kelmhurst LLC. This round follows the company’s $1.5 million round in December of 2020.
The lawn care industry is undergoing a labor shortage — a trend that’s been exacerbated over the course of the pandemic. Greenzie is working to ensure that those open roles can be filled and that, instead of doing repetitive and potentially dangerous work, employees can spend more time focusing on the creative aspects of landscaping.
Greenzie builds tech that enables mowers to cut lawns by themselves. The company partners with Wright Manufacturing, which produces the equipment outfitted with Greenzie’s sensors. So far, the company has 12 mowers deployed by businesses including BrightView and Juniper Landscaping. Customers activate the software after buying the mower, and Greenzie employees are able to troubleshoot any issues and answer questions remotely.
“Customers this year watched as their robotic workers gained new functionality all season long, their software quietly updated, and gained new features: faster performance, safer operation, and tons of small but important fixes that add up. We’re only just getting started,” Charles Quinn, Greenzie’s co-founder and CEO, said in a video announcement.
With the new round of funding, Greenzie wants to partner with more manufacturers as it works to expand its fleet of robotic mowers. The company currently focuses on commercial lawns but eventually hopes to expand its product to smaller, more intricate projects.
This startup isn’t alone in its efforts to upgrade the lawn care industry with tech-based solutions. Earlier this year, Boulder-based Scythe Robotics launched out of stealth with a fresh round of funding. Austin-based outdoor service booking platform LawnStarter pulled in its own round of capital in 2019.
As for the rest of its investment plans, Greenzie is planning to double its 15-person workforce over the next year, it’s currently hiring for a handful of Atlanta-based positions for robotics software engineering and a DevOps engineer.
