Electric Sheep Robotics has introduced its Dexter robot. Dexter can turn existing commercial lawn mowers, both gas and electric, into autonomous vehicles. According to Electric Sheep, Dexter is designed to address critical labor shortages in the landscaping, facilities, and property management industries.
In the US a record 4.5 million U.S. workers quit their jobs in November. There are more job openings than there are workers. The labor market in landscaping is particularly dire. Tens of thousands of full-time positions are going unfilled, according to the National Association of Landscape Professionals, who also call 2021 “the worst labor market in recent history.”
The company also today announced Series A financing in the amount of $21.5 million, led by Tiger Global. To date, the company has raised $25.7 million and is currently the best-capitalized autonomous mowing start-up with the largest number of commercial customer deployments.
Largest crop
Mr. Naganand Murty, CEO of Electric Sheep: “I don’t think people realize that lawns are America’s largest crop. More land and water are dedicated to lawns than to wheat and corn combined, and more than 40 million acres of land in the U.S. has some form of lawn. $20 billion is allocated annually to lawn mowing alone. Solutions such as Electric Sheep’s Dexter robot are helping our customers meet demand and better allocate their already scarce labor pool.”
Electric Sheep will use the funds to fuel expansion across all departments in order to meet growing customer demand. The company currently has contracts with thirty customers across the U.S.. Dexter is being designed to the evolving R15.08 standard for self-driving robots and is available with no upfront costs through a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.
