French energy giant EDF and Tzemach Mifalim Invest in agRE.tech for Robotic Agri-Voltaic System

agRE.tech is pioneering cutting-edge development in leveraging advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) in agriculture and climate technology. This initiative addresses labor challenges in agriculture and aims to boost productivity while meeting global goals for large-scale green energy production on the same agricultural land.

The company completed the $2 million pre-seed funding round with significant investment from entities including Tzemach Mifalim, a partner in founding the company. Tzemach Mifalim, through the Kinneret Innovation Center, leads in climate and agricultural technology. Additionally, EDF, a leader in renewable energy production in Israel, joined the venture, bringing its international energy expertise to advance the vision and realize the tremendous potential for green energy production on agricultural land.

Over the past year, agRE.tech developed an advanced concept in the form of a robotic operating system for agro-voltaic areas. This system operates on photovoltaic infrastructure, gathering extensive, repetitive, and accurate data on the field. Through AI, it enables the execution of complex autonomous agro-technical robotic tasks, such as precise spraying, pruning, and autonomous harvesting. Concurrently, it performs automatic monitoring and maintenance of the solar field.

CEO and co-founder Elad Levy, who has a background in robotics as the former founder and CEO of Roboteam, which has thousands of its robotic systems in operational use worldwide, leads the company. Yaniv Marmur, with extensive experience in managing and leading development teams in complex multidisciplinary systems engineering (green energy and medical), joined as CTO.

The company has registered several patents in the field and established a development site over a vineyard where the robotic operating system is already in use. As part of the open solution of the company’s agRE.os (Operating System), agRE.tech promoted several engineering collaborations with ag-tech and climate-tech companies to integrate their technological solutions in the development field.

Elad Levy, CEO of agRE.tech, stated, "After more than a decade in the world of defense and civilian robotics, we found the climate and agriculture sector to be a developing field with the opportunity to contribute to global efforts in addressing the climate crisis and global food security. Combining these worlds allows enormous potential for technological and business innovation. It is a great honor for us that significant market companies like EDF and Tzemach share our vision of leading the robotic agro-voltaic field and creating a green future for all of us."

Nadav Leshem, Head of Agro-Voltaics, EDF Israel, commented, "The agro-voltaic field is a complex challenge requiring a holistic approach to all resources, needs, and outputs of the various players in the equation, especially the symbiosis between the different components. EDF Israel Renewables focuses on three main areas - research and development, promoting innovation, and creating strategic partnerships along the entire value chain. We are happy and proud to be part of the journey of agRE.tech and Tzemach Mifalim. We believe in the team and the solution, which will serve as a springboard for implementing advanced agro-voltaic projects in the near future."

Menashe Shalom, CEO of Tzemach Mifalim, added, "Tzemach Mifalim aims to lead innovation in agricultural and climate technology. Accordingly, we promoted the collaboration with EDF alongside our investment in agRE.tech, which combines the corporation's many years of knowledge in agriculture, local and international business connections, with the advanced capabilities of Tzemach Technologies. Tzemach sees itself as a leader in this groundbreaking field, which will bring a message to renewable agriculture and green energy production."