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TRIC Robotics Uses UV Light and Robots to Help Strawberry Farmers Cut Pesticides
July 23, 2025
Strawberries may be America’s favorite berry, but they come with a hidden cost: they are among the most pesticide-laden fruits on the market. TRIC Robotics, a startup based in San Luis Obispo, California, believes it has found a cleaner, tech-driven alternative to chemical-heavy farming — and it's betting on UV light and autonomous robots to deliver it.
The company has developed a fleet of tractor-sized autonomous robots equipped with UV-C lights — a powerful form of ultraviolet light that’s deadly to pests and bacteria but safe for crops when used correctly. These robots patrol fields overnight, treating up to 100 acres, while built-in vacuums remove bug residue without damaging fruit or plants.
Instead of selling these machines, TRIC Robotics offers pest control as a service, a business model that mirrors how many farmers already contract out pesticide spraying. “We found out that a lot of the farmers pay for pest disease control as a service,” said co-founder and CEO Adam Stager. “And what we’ve been doing is just replacing that.”
TRIC’s journey into agriculture wasn’t straightforward. The company was originally founded in 2017 by Stager after completing his PhD in robotics, with an initial focus on developing 3D-printed robots for SWAT teams. By 2020, seeking more meaningful impact, Stager pivoted to agriculture — a sector he saw as ripe for innovation and capable of touching millions of lives.
That shift led him to collaborate with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which introduced him to UV-C light technology being developed in government labs. With help from the USDA and some early farmer partnerships, Stager and co-founder Vishnu Somasundaram built two prototype robots in a garage and drove them across the country, Airbnb-hopping for months while testing the machines on small plots of farmland in 2021.
Today, TRIC Robotics works with four major strawberry producers, has nine robots in the field, and three more in production. The company also recently closed a $5.5 million seed round led by Version One Ventures, with participation from Garage Capital, Todd and Rahul Capital, Lucas Venture Group, and other backers.
The new funding will help expand the robot fleet and support a move into other crops beyond strawberries.
“I think there is going to be a really, really bright future for agtech,” Stager said. “There’s really a lot of exciting things to come.”
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