4AG ROBOTICS SECURES CAD 40 MILLION TO REVOLUTIONIZE GLOBAL MUSHROOM FARMING AUTOMATION

Harvesting is delicate, repetitive and required every day of the year, yet producers across Canada and beyond struggle to recruit enough workers to meet demand. Into this gap steps 4AG Robotics, a Canadian start-up developing autonomous mushroom harvesting robots.

The company, based in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, recently secured CAD 40 million (around €26.8 million) in Series B funding, a raise that will allow it to accelerate production, expand internationally, and advance its use of artificial intelligence. The financial milestone signals growing confidence that robotics can solve structural problems in food production.

Going beyond the prototype

For many agricultural robotics companies, the leap from prototype to production is daunting. As CEO Sean O’Connor recently told Agritech Digest, “The real challenge isn’t building a robot that works in the lab—it’s building one that can handle the unpredictability of real crops and complex farm environments”. This principle underpins 4AG’s success: rather than seeking to overhaul existing practices, their robots seamlessly integrate into standard “Dutch-rack” facilities, adapting to the nuances of mushroom beds and farm workflows.

The decision to focus solely on mushrooms has been strategic. O’Connor highlighted mushrooms' unique challenges—they grow year-round and double in size every 24 hours, making labour critical. Harvesting can account for up to 50 % of production costs in Western markets. By targeting mushrooms first, 4AG tackles a high-value, high-demand niche with immense automation potential.

Funding that fuels scale and innovation

The CAD 40 million Series B round, announced in July 2025, was led by Astanor and Cibus Capital, with support from Voyager Capital and longstanding backers such as InBC, BDC Industrial Innovation Fund, Emmertech, Jim Richardson Family Office, Stray Dog Capital, and Seraph Group. This brings the total capital raised in two years to approximately CAD 57.5 million (around €38.5 million).

O’Connor described the shift: “This funding helps us leap from a start-up proving our product works to a scale-up manufacturer trying to keep pace with demand”. Not merely a cash infusion, the funding allows rapid scaling of operations, enhanced production, and intensified R&D.

Ambitious global expansion and innovation

Already deployed in Canada, Ireland and Australia, with upcoming launches in the Netherlands and the United States, 4AG is seeing surging demand. The company reports deposits for over 40 additional robots, indicating significant forward momentum.

Astanor’s Harry Briggs praised the company’s potential: “4AG could be at the forefront of the transformation of agriculture through AI and robotics”. Archie Burgess from Cibus described 4AG as the global leader in ag-harvesting robotics, already achieving pick rates of up to 1 million mushrooms per week.

Smarter harvesting through AI

4AG’s robots do more than automate the harvest. Tthey actively optimise yields. Using computer vision, they map mushroom beds every 30–90 minutes, identifying each mushroom’s growth rate and optimal picking window. Delayed harvesting can mean up to 48% lost yield; conversely, premature picking risks damage. The robots’ intelligence helps navigate this “mushroom chess,” maximising quality and returns.

Farmers also contribute to the AI training process by annotating images according to their harvesting preferences. Each harvested mushroom’s weight and size feed back into the system, enabling weekly learning updates—an exceptionally fast feedback loop in agriculture. The company is also developing models for disease and contamination detection.

Building the operating system for mushroom farms

Michelle Lim, VP of Growth at 4AG, underlines the company’s ambition: “We’re not just building robots—we’re building a new operating system for the mushroom industry. Growers want tech that works out of the box, delivers ROI in under three years, and scales globally”. To achieve this, the new investment is being directed towards scaling manufacturing at the company’s Salmon Arm facility, expanding its field service and customer success teams, and accelerating the development of next-generation features such as punnet packing, disease detection and AI-driven yield optimisation.

Looking ahead, O’Connor foresees robotics reshaping the mushroom industry’s structure, echoing transformative innovations of the late ’80s and early ’90s. Farms not embracing automation may fall behind or be consolidated.

He also predicts a broader role for robotics: “Robots won’t just replace labour—they’ll act as intelligent assistants that optimise yield, predict disease, improve supply chain efficiency… Farmers will evolve from being primarily land stewards to technologists”.

Image credit: alleksana - Pexels