A Salmon Arm-based agtech company is poised for global expansion after closing a $40 million CAD Series B funding round to grow its fleet of mushroom-picking robots.
4AG Robotics, a pioneer in fully autonomous mushroom harvesting, announced the raise this week. The round was co-led by agtech investors Astanor Ventures and Cibus Capital, with participation from new investor Voyager Capital and returning backers InBC, Emmertech, BDC Industrial Innovation Fund, Jim Richardson Family Office, Stray Dog Capital, and Seraph Group. It brings the company's total funding to $57.5 million over the past two years.
“This funding helps us leap from a start-up proving our product works to a scale-up manufacturer trying to keep pace with demand,” said Sean O'Connor, CEO of 4AG Robotics. “In just two and a half years, we've gone from asking farms to trial our technology to having deposits for over 40 additional robots.”
The company’s robotic harvesting system—already operating in Canada, Ireland, and Australia—uses AI-powered vision, suction grippers, and motion control to harvest, trim, and pack mushrooms 24/7. The robots are designed to integrate with Dutch-rack growing systems, helping farms reduce labour costs, standardize quality, and capture real-time performance data.
“What sets us apart is we are not just a theoretical robotics project that works in a controlled lab environment,” said Chris Payne, COO of 4AG. “It’s the real-world experience and the systems thinking that is critical to working with the complexity of real farm environments.”
The new funding will support international deployments in the Netherlands and the United States, as well as growth plans closer to home. 4AG will expand its manufacturing capacity in Salmon Arm, build out its customer support teams, and continue developing features like punnet packing, disease detection, and AI-driven yield optimization.
Investor Harry Briggs of Astanor Ventures sees 4AG as a category leader. “Of all the agricultural sectors, mushrooms are the most poised for robotic solutions,” he said. “4AG is not only the clear global leader today, but also has the potential… to drive up yields and reduce inputs across the industry.”
Archie Burgess of UK-based Cibus Capital echoed the sentiment, pointing to the company’s current output. “The impressive 4AG team has already developed a fleet of robots that pick up to 1 million mushrooms per week,” he said.
With harvesting costs making up half of mushroom production in western markets—and the crop doubling in size every 24 hours—growers face unrelenting operational pressure. 4AG’s robotic solution offers a plug-and-play upgrade, requiring no reconfiguration of existing infrastructure.
“We're not just building robots—we're building a new operating system for the mushroom industry,” said Michelle Lim, VP of Growth at 4AG Robotics. “Growers want tech that works out of the box, delivers ROI in under three years, and scales globally. That's what we've built.”