Alphabet is reportedly exiting its mineral robotic farming startup due to fierce competition and low profit margins in the industry. BloombergGoogle’s parent company will license some of its agricultural technology to Driscoll’s, a berry grower that has been working for the past few years with autonomous “plant buggies” developed by Mineral to study crops, soil and other environmental factors.
Bloomberg The company said it had obtained a memo in which Mineral announced plans to “transfer its technology to the agricultural ecosystem and maximize the impact of deploying AI in agriculture” and confirmed that “Mineral is no longer owned by Alphabet.” In parallel with the Driscolls deal, licensing talks are also reportedly taking place with companies that previously partnered with Mineral.
Mineral graduated from Alphabet’s X Labs, the experimental division that launched Google Glass and Waymo’s self-driving car unit, to become an independent subsidiary last year. Bloomberg Mineral employees have reportedly been searching for ways to keep their jobs in recent months after it became “clear” that the company no longer had a future under Alphabet.
“We are pleased to be partnering with Driscoll to bring this technology to market,” said Scott Comer, Driscoll’s senior vice president of global research and development. Bloomberg “We were really disappointed that Alphabet decided to reverse course,” Komar told the publication. “We’ve had a really great partnership with the Mineral team. From our standpoint, they were just getting started, and then all of a sudden, the plans changed.”
