Electric Sheep released its new Dexter robot, which takes existing commercial lawn mowers, both gas and electric, and turns them into autonomous vehicles.
“I don’t think people realize that lawns are America’s largest crop,” said 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. have some form of lawn. Solutions such as Electric Sheep’s Dexter robot are helping our customers meet demand and better allocate their already scarce labor pool.”
Dexter is designed to address critical labor shortages in the landscaping, facilities and property management industries, according to the company.
The company also today announced Series A financing in the amount of $21.5 million, led by Tiger Global. To date, the company has raised $25.7 million and 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. Electric Sheep is leading the way with fully autonomous solutions,” said Griffin Schroeder, partner, Tiger Global.
Other investors include Foundation Capital, who led the $4 million Seed round, grep -vc, Signia Venture Partners, as well as individual pre-Seed investors Ariel Cohen (TripActions), Travis Deyle (Cobalt Robotics), Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad), and Reinforced Ventures.
Electric Sheep will use the funds to fuel expansion across all departments in order to meet growing customer demand. The company currently has contracts with thirty customers across the U.S. and interest is high.
Dexter easily attaches to new or existing lawn mowers and requires minimal training in order to autonomously mow any type of grass. Landscapers simply show Dexter what to do one time, and the robot then autonomously repeats those actions.
Dexter uses. LiDAR, cameras, GPS, ultrasonic sensors for precise maneuvering across diverse terrain and OTA firmware updates. All robots are monitored while in use and incorporate a safety-rated system capable of detecting perimeter breaches in even the most adverse conditions. Dexter is being designed to the evolving R15.08 standard for self-driving robots and is available with no upfront costs through a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.
