EIC Accelerator: Nature Robots awarded €6.5M blended finance
Founded in 2022, Nature Robots (Germany) is an innovative software tech startup revolutionising the agricultural sector with the world’s first fully autonomous farming system. Their project, ‘A-FORWARD, Autonomous Full Farming for Optimised Regenerative and Wholesome Agriculture with Robotics and Deep-Learning’ was awarded €6.5 million blended finance in the October 2024 EIC Accelerator round. We heard from CEO, Dr. Sebastian Pütz, on the importance of this award, their aims for A-FORWARD, and experience of collaborating with Catalyze towards the successful submission.
Nature Robots in action. (Image used with permission from Nature Robots)
“[Catalyze’s] dedication made the collaboration much more than just an application process; it felt like a real partnership.” — Sebastian Pütz
Nature Robots are enabling scalable regenerative agriculture
Nature Robots, led by CEO Dr. Sebastian Pütz is on a mission to enable the transition to regenerative agriculture through autonomy, supporting resilient farming, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and improving biodiversity. They are developing a fully autonomous farming system, integrating AI-driven decision-making with advanced robotics. Unlike conventional solutions that rely on only 2D spatial mapping and GNSS/RTK, Nature Robots’ system operates in full three spatial dimensions, with highly advanced autonomous navigation technology enabling unparalleled adaptability from simple conventional agriculture to complex regenerative farming.
The four founders Dr. Sebastian Pütz (CEO), Sven Lake (CSO), Gerrit Woeckner (COO) and Malte kleine Piening (CTO) have been working together on the idea since September 2019 and have been conducting research in the field of robotics and AI and supporting strategic corporate processes for agricultural machinery manufacturers since 2015. In January 2022, they founded Nature Robots as a DFKI spin-off.
Nature Robots’ EIC Accelerator project
To scale regenerative agriculture farmers need autonomous machines which can deal with complex market garden settings and agroforestry systems. Nature Robots overcomes key challenges in scaling regenerative agriculture, including high transition costs, labour shortages, and technical limitations. The key is a closed-loop system ensures seamless integration of planning, execution, monitoring, and real-time adjustments, creating a dynamic, responsive farming model.
This allows the farming system to adapt to different climates and soil conditions. The AI-based cultivation planner determines tasks based on weather conditions and plant growth stages, while autonomous navigation executes precise robotic operations. The monitoring system tracks plants and adjusts strategies, ensuring adaptive responses to changing soil and climate conditions.
With their EIC Accelerator award, Nature Robots can work towards completing technology development and demonstration of the full farming system.
Sebastian comments, “The EIC accelerator allows this moonshot project enabling regenerative agriculture to scale and allowing farmers to transition faster as 40% of the world’s farming land is degraded. In doing so, Nature Robots is filling a gap in an important, rapidly growing agricultural market that is expected to feed 10 billion people and double food demand by 2050 by supporting farmers who work 12 to 18 hours and are on average 57 years old.”
“The market is growing rapidly, and with food demand expected to double by 2050, we’re creating the technology that will shape the future of agriculture.”
Looking ahead: “What excites me the most is showing farmers what is possible”
Nature Robots’ system is built on four technological pillars: Autonomous Navigation – Robotics software for precise and adaptable movement across diverse landscapes, including orchards, vineyards, and organic farms; Weed and Crop Monitoring – AI-based identification of crops and weeds at pixel precision, allowing targeted interventions such as laser-based weed control; Agronomic Planning – An AI-driven decision support tool that optimizes crop cycles based on soil conditions, climate, and growth stage data; and Lero Robot & Implements – A modular robotic platform performing autonomous farming tasks, from seeding and weeding to harvesting.
The company’s innovative approach provides farmers with a comprehensive solution for managing regenerative agricultural systems, significantly surpassing traditional farming methods. With scalability at its core, Nature Robots aims to extend its deep-tech solutions to larger-scale organic and conventional vegetable farming in the near future.
Sebastian shares what he is most excited for in the years ahead:
“At Nature Robots, I’m most excited about the momentum we’re building and the ability to turn cutting-edge technology into real-world impact. We are moving from MVPs to fully developed products, bringing our ready-to-use autonomy software to hundreds of machines, and enabling manufacturers to build autonomous robots for Agri-PV and Agroforestry.
“With the support of the €6.5M EIC Accelerator award, we can accelerate the development of our fully autonomous farming system, scaling regenerative agriculture in ways that weren’t possible before. Our AI-driven decision-making and advanced robotics go beyond conventional GNSS-based systems, operating in complex environments like market gardens and agroforestry with unprecedented adaptability.
“What excites me the most is showing farmers what is possible – offering solutions that they didn’t even know were possible and that they wouldn’t want to miss. By reducing labor-intensive tasks, optimizing crop cycles, and making scalable and robust autonomous farming a reality, we are helping farmers transition to more sustainable and productive practices. The market is growing rapidly, and with food demand expected to double by 2050, we’re creating the technology that will shape the future of agriculture.”
“The Catalyze team wasn’t just providing a service—they genuinely wanted to support us.”
Nature Robots collaborated with the Catalyze team along the journey to securing the prestigious EIC Accelerator grant. The October 2024 round was the most competitive to date, with 1211 applicants, and only 71 winners.
Sebastian comments, “Working with Catalyze was a great experience. Their expertise and structured approach helped us navigate the highly competitive EIC Accelerator process, where only 71 out of 1211 applicants were selected. Their support was invaluable in refining our proposal, aligning our vision with the grant requirements, and ensuring a compelling narrative that highlighted both the technological innovation and the impact of our autonomous farming system.
“What made the collaboration truly special was that we always had the feeling that the Catalyze team was deeply invested in our company and solution. They weren’t just providing a service—they genuinely wanted to support us. Their commitment and enthusiasm were evident throughout the entire process. They took the time to understand our vision, our technology, and the impact we aim to achieve with autonomous farming.
“This dedication made the collaboration much more than just an application process; it felt like a real partnership. Their strategic guidance, attention to detail, and ability to align our innovation with the EIC Accelerator’s expectations were instrumental in our success. Catalyze’s insights into structuring the application, fine-tuning the financial aspects, and anticipating evaluator expectations played a key role in securing the €6.5 million blended finance award.”
What is the EIC Accelerator?
The EIC Accelerator, part of Horizon Europe, is a funding programme designed by the European Innovation Council to support (deep-tech) start-ups and SMEs that:
- Develop innovative, game-changing products, services, or business models with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones in Europe and beyond.
- Demonstrate the ambition and commitment to scale up their business.
- Require significant funding to grow, but whose high level of risk makes it difficult to attract private investment alone.
This highly competitive programme helps you to develop your business concept further into a market-ready product, service or process aligned with your company’s growth strategy. Want to learn more about the EIC Accelerator programme and the different services Catalyze Group can provide? We tell you all about it on this page.
And do you want to get the most out of your EIC Accelerator proposal? Make sure to download our EIC Accelerator guide to help you secure funding.
Catalyze is an official partner of the EIC
Catalyze is proud to be an official EIC Partner and member of the EIC Ecosystem Partnership and Co-investment Support programme. All EIC supported projects and companies get access to coaching, mentoring, partnering and other EIC Business Acceleration Services from partners as part of the programme.
Learn more about EIC Ecosystem Partnership and Co-investment Support programme.
About the European Innovation Council (EIC) Programme
The European Innovation Council (EIC), launched under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, has a budget of €10.1 billion to support breakthrough innovations, covering the full journey from early research and proof of concept to technology transfer, funding, and scaling up start-ups and SMEs. The EIC aims at identifying and supporting breakthrough technologies and game-changing innovations with the potential to scale up internationally and become market leaders. 70% of the entire budget is ear-marked for SMEs, which shows the focus of EIC on supporting SMEs. There are 3 sub-programmes that form the basis of the EIC programme: EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition and EIC Accelerator.
About Catalyze
At Catalyze we commit ourselves to accelerate innovations that have a positive impact on the world. We are the driving force for innovations across the fields of Life Sciences and Sustainability. Our offering of strategic consulting services, funding consulting, project management and more, deliver impactful expertise for all development stages. With a proven track record and the highest quality and success rate in the industry, we aim to be the consulting partner of choice to drive the success of meaningful innovation projects.
