TIBOT Technologies, a French startup company specializing in poultry robotics, is taking off with a second round of financing. With the latest round, the company hopes to raise EUR3 million (US$3.3 million).
Building on its technological and commercial successes, TIBOT Technologies seeks to accelerate its international development.
The French company, in a press release, announced the EUR3 million investment from Demeter and Seventure Partners, and its historic investors, Breizh Up and Credit Agricole Ille-et-Vilaine Expansion. The financing is completed by its backing partners: Caisse regionale de Credit Agricole Ille-et-Vilaine, BNP Paribas, and Credit Mutuel de Bretagne.
TIBOT Technologies designs robots intendent to increase the technical and economic performance of poultry operations and to improve working conditions for breeders. TIBOT Technologies will make a presentation at the Poultry Tech Summit, on November 20-22, 2019, at the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Since its inception, TIBOT Technologies has been working as close to the poultry industry as possible, to take the heavy constraints of the industry into account and to meet expectations for animal welfare while increasing the profitability of poultry operations.
"We couldn’t be happier with this support," said Yanne Courcox, co-founder and president of TIBOT Technologies. "Demeter – through the Agrinnovation fund – and Seventure provide us with financial resources but, more importantly, with strategic experience in the AgTech sector and an international network. This funding will help us accelerate our business development, but it will also allow us to continue to generate value for our current customers. We will enhance our offer with more features – ever more innovative ones – while we stay in touch with the needs expressed in the field."
"TIBOT Technologies' robots provide an innovative response to the new challenges of poultry farming. The sector is growing rapidly, and it is undergoing a profound transformation. Of course, production must rise to deal with global population growth, but it is important to produce better, so as to meet consumer expectations and the need to take animal welfare into account. And all this must be done in a context of scarce agricultural manpower. We are proud to support the company whose management has a clear vision of the development of the sector and has thus developed products that offer very pragmatical responses to the needs of poultry farmers," Riadh Shaiek, a partner at Demeter, and Isabelle de Cremoux, chairperson of the board at Seventure Partners, said in a statement.
Taking advantage of technological advantage
TIBOT Technologies, along with announcing the financing round, announced two main objectives:
- Accelerating its growth through the sustainability of its international development, and
- Increasing its technological lead by enhancing robotics-related features.
Since it was launched in 2017, TIBOT Technologies has sold its solutions in 15 countries, with major companies as customers. More than 70% of the company’s turnover is export-derived. Its turnover also more than doubled between 2017 and 2018.
TIBOT Technologies invents poultry farming support robot
Behind the project’s original idea stand a couple of poultry farmers, Laetitia and Benoit Savary, who were concerned with reducing the rate of floor-eggs, with meeting new rules related to medication use and ever-increasing quality requirements. The prototype of the first poultry assistance robot, the jury's favorite at SPACE 2016, received a 3-star INNOV'SPACE award.
It was this close-to-the-field approach that won over the Breizh Angels, Breizh Up, and Crédit Agricole Ille-et-Vilaine Expansion, the original investors. "We were quickly seduced by the technology developed by TIBOT, by the team’s positioning, market potential and complementarity. Thanks to its founders, the in-depth knowledge of the poultry business is in the company’s DNA. It is now taking things up to the next level, and we are pleased to continue our support," said Stéphane Lefevre-Sauli, Sofimac Innovation's investment director in charge of the Breizh Up fund, and Arnaud DOUARD, managing director of Crédit Agricole Ille-et-Vilaine Expansion.
