Workforce challenges have increased demand for automation, including in the landscaping and facilities and property management industries. Electric Sheep Robotics today announced $21.5 million in Series A financing and the availability of its Dexter robotic lawnmowing system.
“I don’t think people realize that lawns are America’s largest crop,” stated Naganand Murty, CEO of Electric Sheep. “More land and water are dedicated to lawns than to wheat and corn combined, and more than 40 million acres of land in the U.S. has some form of lawn. $20 billion is allocated annually to lawn mowing alone.”
“Solutions such as Electric Sheep’s Dexter robot are helping our customers meet demand and better allocate their already scarce labor pool,” he added. The startup is named after the Philip K. Dick novel that was the basis for cyberpunk film Blade Runner.
CEO Nag Murty, Chief Operating Officer Jarrett Herold, and Chief Product Officer Gunjit Singh founded Electric Sheep Robotics in 2019. The San Francisco-based company launched its first paid pilot in March 2020 and has additional offices in Greater Philadelphia.
Dexter designed for easy use, diverse terrain
A record 4.5 million U.S. workers quit their jobs in November 2021. In landscaping, tens of thousands of full-time positions are unfilled, according to the National Association of Landscape Professionals, which called 2021 “the worst labor market in recent history.”
Electric Sheep retrofits existing commercial landscaping equipment into autonomous machines.
“Dexter easily attaches to new or existing lawn mowers and requires minimal training in order to autonomously mow any type of grass,” claimed Electric Sheep. “Landscapers simply show Dexter what to do one time, and the robot then autonomously repeats those actions.”
The system includes lidar, cameras, GPS, and ultrasonic sensors for precise maneuvering across diverse terrain, said the company. Its firmware can be updated over the air (OTA). Electric Sheep said it monitors all of its mobile robots, which incorporate a safety-rated system capable of detecting perimeter breaches.
Dexter is being designed to the evolving R15.08 standard for self-driving robots and is available with no upfront costs through a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) model.
Electric Sheep to invest in staff
Tiger Global led Electric Sheep Robotics' Series A round. The company has raised $25.7 million to date and claimed that it is currently the best-capitalized autonomous mowing start-up with the largest number of commercial customer deployments.
“Automation of the $115 billion outdoor maintenance market is an enormous opportunity hiding in plain sight,” said Griffin Schroeder, a partner at Tiger Global. “Electric Sheep is leading the way with fully autonomous solutions. We are excited to invest and help them grow their leadership position.”
Other investors include Foundation Capital, which led Electric Sheep's $4 million Seed round; grep-vc; and Signia Venture Partners. Participants also included individual pre-seed investors Ariel Cohen (of TripActions), Travis Deyle (of Cobalt Robotics), Sahil Lavingia (of Gumroad), and Reinforced Ventures.
Electric Sheep said it plans to use the funds to hire across all departments to meet growing customer demand. The company currently has contracts with 30 customers across the U.S.
Customers deploy Dexter
“The landscape industry, like many others, is experiencing extreme labor shortages, and for us, COVID-19 has only exacerbated a pre-existing problem,” said Matt Menoni of Apex Landscaping in Hawthorn Woods, Ill. “The automation of our mowing work allows our teams to redirect their focus onto more specialized work at our clients’ properties—the stuff they actually get excited about.”
“We’re also big believers that this opens the door for young people to get excited about horticulture,” he said. “This technology provides unique opportunities for the next generation to be engaged in an industry they might not normally consider.”
Menoni also praised Dexter's efficiency. “I’m able to deploy my workers on more specialized work for our clients and leave the drudgery of lawn mowing to Dexter,” he said.
“By autonomously mowing lawns— one of the least-skilled tasks my team undertakes—Electric Sheep is helping us to automate our way out of an extreme labor shortage,” said Michael Mayberry of Level Green Landscaping in Washington, D.C. “I want my business to be on the cutting edge and to be an early adopter of autonomous solutions because I believe that autonomous technology can revolutionize the landscaping industry.”
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