Experiences of layoffs at Iron Ox

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Iron Ox’s autonomous cell robotic Grover. | Supply: Iron Ox

There are reviews of great layoffs at Iron Ox, an agriculture know-how firm that makes use of robotics to customise look after vegetation. Many now-former staff have posted on social media in regards to the layoffs.

Whereas it’s unclear precisely what number of staff have been laid off, quite a few posts point out Iron Ox let go of roughly half of its staff. Iron Ox additionally laid off a smaller variety of staff a number of months in the past, in keeping with different posts from former staff.

Based mostly in Silicon Valley, Iron Ox is an agriculture know-how startup with deep experience in plant science, robotics and synthetic intelligence (AI). The corporate makes use of two robots in its rising course of.

The primary is Grover, a cell robotic that autonomously navigates via Iron Ox’s greenhouses. Grover slides underneath the corporate’s plant-growing modules, picks them up and takes them wherever they must be. This might embrace shifting the modules to get new vegetation and provides present vegetation extra daylight, vitamin and water.
Iron Ox’s different robotic, Max, delivers and screens every module’s water, nutrient, combine and pH ranges. Max works with Grover to optimize plant yield, increase progress cycles and maximize crop high quality. The corporate additionally makes use of robotic arms to are inclined to the vegetation. 
Iron Ox’s final funding spherical closed in September 2021 and introduced the corporate’s whole funding to $98 million.
Iron Ox isn’t the one firm feeling monetary strain recently. Fifth Season, one other agricultural know-how firm, closed down final week, in keeping with reporting from the Pittsburgh Enterprise Instances. Fifth Season used robotics to develop leafy greens in vertical farms. The greens could be distributed in salad kits offered at grocery shops. The corporate employed round 100 staff.
Additionally final week, autonomous driving firm Argo AI shut down. A few of Argo AI’s round 2,000 staff would both be receiving provides from Ford or Volkswagen, which had been the 2 major monetary backers of Argo AI.
The Robotic Reportreached out to Iron Ox for touch upon the layoffs however didn’t hear again at press time.