SAIA Agrobotics, a developer of robotics for greenhouse rising out of Ede, has accomplished a brand new €10 million Sequence A funding spherical to speed up the business rollout of its automated greenhouse system, which goals to spice up crop yields and cut back labour necessities throughout controlled-environment agriculture.
The spherical was led by Check24, in collaboration with the EIC Fund and current buyers Navus Ventures and Oost NL – bringing complete funding to over €20 million.
SAIA was additionally one eight startups that offered its know-how on the 2025 EU-Startups Summit as part of the cohort of EIC-backed startups, highlighting its function amongst Europe’s rising AgTech innovators.
“At SAIA we lately accomplished the world’s first automated greenhouse, the place crops go to the robotic as soon as per week for scanning and harvesting,” says Dr Ruud Barth, CEO and Founding father of SAIA. “We intention for a 20% enhance in yields with a 50% complete greenhouse labour discount. This can be a enormous step ahead in offering a neighborhood, resilient and sustainable meals provide.”
This new Sequence A funding spherical for SAIA comes at a time when funding into European AgTech and automation startups stays energetic.
In August 2025, Norway’s Saga Robotics secured €9.5 million to scale its autonomous farm-robot platform for greenhouse and soft-fruit operations within the UK and US. In the meantime, UK-based Wild Bioscience raised €51 million in October 2025 to advance its AI-driven precision-breeding know-how, reflecting rising confidence in high-impact AgTech options. Earlier within the 12 months, CroBio from Cheshire obtained about €805k in grant funding to develop enhanced microbes for agriculture.
Collectively, these 2025 developments present sustained investor urge for food for digital and robotic programs enhancing yields and sustainability. Inside this panorama, SAIA’s strategy to automated greenhouse rising stands out as a robust regional instance of Dutch experience driving effectivity and labour-saving innovation in controlled-environment agriculture.
Georg Heusgen, Director at Check24, says, ”The SAIA rising programs permits harvesting 52 weeks a 12 months, guaranteeing subsequently increased annual yields per sq. meter. The SAIA harvesting system applies what everyone knows from business to the greenhouse sector. The product involves the robotic and never vi ce versa. There, underneath a standardised setting, robots can deleaf and harvest with an accuracy of over 99%, guaranteeing higher product high quality and the promised labor price financial savings.“
Worldwide, the demand for wholesome, recent, and sustainably produced meals will enhance by between 30 to 50% within the coming a long time – as per SAIA figures.
Dutch greenhouse horticulture know-how is the market forerunner within the optimum manufacturing of, for instance, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. The worldwide demand for these high-tech greenhouses will develop to 5000 hectares per 12 months of newbuilt tasks, in response to the Rabobank.
Nonetheless, the corporate outlines that the prime bottleneck is the supply of labour and data to maintain these greenhouses operational. Labour prices are skyrocketing and the necessity for automation is now pressing.
Jaap Zijlstra, Director at Navus Ventures, provides, “SAIA Agrobotics has developed modern ideas and know-how within the subject of crops, automation, and logistics, creating a brand new strategy to greenhouse rising, with the potential to take a significant step in environment friendly and sustainable meals manufacturing.”
Based in 2017, SAIA Agrobotics advocates a systemic change; their robotic doesn’t enter the greenhouse, however the plant involves the robotic as a substitute. This fashion the robotic has full visibility and entry across the plant to allow quick harvests and plant upkeep, whereas permitting the plant to develop in an optimum setting for crops.
CEO Barth notes that earlier this 12 months the primary buyer, Growers United, has deployed the primary components of the system at their services and is extensively utilizing SAIA know-how on-site.
Wout Morrenhof, funding supervisor at Oost NL, provides: “SAIA is an effective instance of a startup that has developed from Wageningen College & Analysis and has an modern answer for a significant social problem. Digitisation and robotisation are wanted to supply enough wholesome and sustainable meals now and sooner or later. SAIA has developed strongly over the previous two years and is prepared for the additional commercialisation of their product.”
SAIA’s profitable financing spherical follows a six 12 months interval of technological improvement, which has led to a number of worldwide patents.
After an preliminary pre-Seed funding by affect and DeepTech buyers SHIFT Make investments, Innovation Industries, and Oost NL and thereafter a Seed spherical led by Navus Ventures and Oost NL, the brand new financing spherical brings the whole funds raised to over €20 million, permits SAIA to enter the market as early as subsequent 12 months.
Svetoslava Georgieva, Chair of the EIC Fund Board, added: “The EIC Fund is glad to again SAIA’s potential to revolutionise sustainable meals manufacturing by digitisation and automation, aligning with their methods to help modern agrotechnology. They intention to cut back complete greenhouse labour by 50% whereas growing yields by 20%.”
