Every year, hundreds of tonnes of fresh fruit - worth millions and millions - are left to rot in the field. Why? Due to labor shortages, the cost of harvesting would have exceeded the value of the fruit.

Across Australian horticulture, production costs are soaring. The apple and pear industry has seen a 40% increase in total costs since 2019, with labor as the primary driver. Labor costs, which increased 12% in the past 12 months alone, now represents 60% of total production costs for apples and pears. More broadly, labor costs across horticulture have climbed to represent 29-34% of total gross cash farm income. The pressure isn't easing; it's accelerating.

While autonomy seems like an obvious solution, in practice, adoption in horticulture has been limited. Most companies have understandably focused on harvest where labor costs are highest. However, harvest is also the most technically challenging application: each harvesting system needs to be highly specialized for each crop type, creating long R&D cycles and smaller opportunities for scale. The result: expensive, complex solutions that most growers can't justify, even as their labor challenges intensify.

But what if you started with the simplest, most repeatable tasks instead? What if the hardware was affordable enough that growers could deploy fleets rather than single units? What if you made autonomy so operationally straightforward that it removed the barrier of technical complexity?

That's why we're excited about Agovor, our second investment in Fund II. We're proud to have led the $3M pre-seed round, with co-investment from Hort Innovation Australia via the Hort Innovation Investment Fund.

Bottom-up, fleet-ready autonomy for horticulture

Agovor is starting with the simple, repetitive work that farmers need done constantly: mowing & spraying. It's a bottom-up strategy that prioritizes adoption and operational reliability over technical sophistication.

Agovor's eTractors are affordable enough that medium-sized growers can justify the investment. Better yet, they can deploy multiple units as a fleet. When we attended a field day in Q3 2025, multiple growers told us they could see it paying for itself in a single season, and with a 3-year warranty, "that's a lot of upside."

This investment also extends our autonomy thesis: agricultural autonomy will be a huge market, extending far beyond what machines and humans do today, that features multiple types of solutions and unlocks new ways of working. With SwarmFarm (Fund I) as an integrated autonomy solution for broadacre, Agovor adds another complementary dimension: compact, electric, purpose-built autonomy for permanent crops and berries. These aren't competing approaches, but rather are addressing different parts of the adoption landscape and collectively growing the market for autonomous solutions.

What Agovor Does

Agovor manufactures electric, autonomous tractors (eTractors) with attachments like mowers and CDA sprayers. The units are compact (120kg tare weight), operate for 10 hours on swappable batteries, and can navigate narrow rows that larger equipment can't access.

This matters in practice. In berry farms, for example, managing "leg rows" where polytunnels meet the ground is challenging because spacing is so tight. Agovor's size means they can handle these areas, eliminating separate passes or manual labor.

The software is equally important. Agovor's "model-first" platform (the Agovor Portal) lets operators manage entire fleets from a single interface. When growers scale up, they simply add more units - the software automatically redistributes work to optimize fleet collaboration.

A veteran team 

Agovor was born from direct experience. Co-founder Richard Beaumont started the company four years ago to solve labor challenges at his own nursery, Ardmore Nurseries in New Zealand. He and co-founder Simon Carroll spent years self-funding development and proving it worked before taking it to market.

The addition of Mike Riley as CEO brought the commercial maturity we look for at this stage. Mike has 30+ years scaling technology companies including leading Compac to acquisition by TOMRA.

Why this matters and what's ahead

Agovor's technology delivers measurable environmental impact: electric versus diesel reduces emissions, while the lightweight design minimizes soil compaction and preserves soil health. Early customer data shows upward of $30,000 in annual savings, 90% reduction in water use, and 12.5% reduction in chemical inputs. Beyond environmental metrics, Agovor strengthens farm resilience by providing operational continuity regardless of labor availability.

Building on early momentum with customers in Australia and New Zealand already deploying multiple units, the focus now is commercial execution: proving sales repeatability across diverse horticultural operations and expanding the attachment ecosystem. Agovor is scaling R&D and manufacturing at their Sydney headquarters while building sales and service infrastructure across both countries.

See the full media release from Agovor here.