Spotta’s smart pest system has attracted almost £1m in seed funding.
In rewarding the commercial success of the Cambridge start-up – which we covered back in February – investors believe Spotta has huge potential in global markets in farming, forestry, hospitality and other sectors.
They believe it could help solve the £320bn problem of insect pests while dramatically reducing pesticide use.
Representatives of Cambridge Angels and REMUS, a US-based VC firm, will join Spotta’s board as part of the £934,000 investment deal.
Other major investors include Martlet Capital, Wren Capital, and the Angel CoFund.
Spotta commercialised its first product in 2019. In addition to its Bed Pod product, which monitors bed bugs in hotels and other multi-room accommodation offerings, Spotta is working with a major forest management organisation to develop an outdoor pest monitoring solution, and anticipates its technology being used in other applications including insect monitoring to help boost yields in agriculture.
Building from this highly successful launch, Spotta will use the new funding to continue hiring top talent, launch two new products, and enter into new international markets beyond its current presence in the UK, the US and Europe.
CEO Robert Fryers said: “For decades, pest management has been held back by laborious, error-prone manual monitoring.
“With our technology it is finally possible to change this and help industries around the world to make a step change from reactive to proactive management of pests.
“We are at an exciting intersection of AI, environmental sustainability and IoT. Our scalable, platform technology enables huge increases in productivity in a range of sectors including agriculture, forestry, textiles and hospitality.
“We are building a substantial, highly profitable business by giving our customers better tools for dealing with invasive and costly species.”
Paul Anson, lead investor from the Cambridge Angels says: “Throughout its initial market roll-out with the Bed Pod, Spotta has proven that its pest detection and identification technology has real-world capabilities and delivers customer value in a global marketplace.
“This was a very strong follow-on round and that speaks to the capability of the management team and their execution success. We look forward to supporting Spotta as it continues on its commercial journey.”