The UK-based tech start-up Dogtooth Technologies has announced a £500,000 investment from FII Institute.
This investment is the first made by FII Institute into a UK business, and was facilitated by an introduction made between the FII Institute and Dogtooth Technologies by the Growth Capital Team of the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT).
The Future Investment Initiative Institute, or FII Institute, is a non-profit organization run by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund.
The announcement was made and the agreement was signed by Dr Duncan Robertson, Co-Founder and CEO of Dogtooth Technologies and Anthony Berkley, Director of Investments (ACT) from FII Institute at the 6th edition of the FII event, which convened 25-27 October 2022 in Riyadh under the theme ‘Investing in Humanity: Enabling a New Global Order’.
Dogtooth Technologies develops and sells autonomous fruit picking robots, helping to reduce food wastage and CO2 emissions arising from fruit production. The company was created as a result of work carried out in the Computer Vision & Robotics group at Cambridge University Engineering Department, which is led by Professor Roberto Cipolla. The company is pioneering the commercial exploitation of autonomous robots in unstructured, outdoor environments, using state-of-the-art machine learning and computer vision technology to achieve near-human visual acuity and dexterity. This investment by the FII Institute will help Dogtooth, which currently has 70 strawberry picking robots in use in Europe and Australia, to expand into new global markets and develop a new generation of robots, capable of higher speed and of picking different crops. The innovation will help to tackle global greenhouse gas emissions of which an estimated 24% come from the agriculture sector.
Of the investment, co-founder and CEO of Dogtooth Technologies, Dr Duncan Robertson, said: “We are delighted to form this strategic partnership with the FII Institute. We know they have a deep commitment to sustainability and that robotics is a priority theme for them. This investment hits all the right notes and will be transformative for our company.”
Richard Attias, CEO of the FII Institute, added: “Our work at the FII Institute focuses on creating a better and more sustainable future for all of humanity. That is exactly why we are investing in this innovative solution that is helping solve important problems in the field of agriculture. These investments support key UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to climate change, global hunger, and economic growth. These investments are made through the FII Institute’s ACT pillar, which aims to invest in sustainable solutions across our four focus areas – AI & Robotics, Education, Healthcare and Sustainability.”