Niqo Robotics is broadening its U.S. footprint beyond lettuce and plans to roll out an upgraded weeding robot later this year as it pushes toward profitability. Profitability in 2026-27 is the company’s group goal, founder and CEO Jaisimha Rao told AgFunderNews, as Niqo prepares to scale product lines for specialty crops and turf.
Rao says growers are skeptical of hype and want clear returns: when a robot will pay off, what maintenance looks like, and how it reduces costs. The company already has more than 50 units operating in India and 11 U.S. units deployed across California, Arizona and Georgia, and it is targeting turf grass in the Pacific Northwest next.
The next-generation RoboWeeder is an evolution of Niqo’s existing platform, with upgraded AI performance, operational efficiency and expanded crop libraries. The retrofit machine mounts to a tractor, runs roughly 20 feet wide, and uses a multi-camera system to discriminate crops from weeds for specialty crops including onions, tomatoes, broccoli, kale, melons and turf grass.
Product and use cases
Niqo sells two core products: RoboWeeder, a spot-spray system that handles precision weeding, thinning and beneficial spraying in a single pass using Niqo Sense computer vision; and RoboSpray, a spot-spray stack integrated into a self-propelled boom sprayer that is Niqo’s flagship in India for crops like cotton and chili peppers. RoboWeeder targets U.S. specialty-crop operations while RoboSpray is geared toward small- to mid-sized farms in emerging markets.
The company frames its economics around labor replacement. Rao says manual thinning and weeding in U.S. lettuce can cost about $185–$200 per acre and that Niqo’s unit retails for roughly $350,000. Early units exceeded internal expectations—five initial units averaged about 1,500 acres per season—so Niqo projects typical payback in the field at 12–18 month ROI depending on implementation and acreage.
Niqo does not adopt a robotics-as-a-service model, instead selling through dealers and offering an optional maintenance package rather than a recurring software subscription. Manufacturing for U.S. customers has moved to the U.S., though cameras still come from India, a choice Rao says improves grower confidence and avoids tariff exposure.
Business model and scale
Rao flags supply-chain pressures driven by demand for Nvidia chips and memory at hyperscale data centers as a significant cost and lead-time challenge for small robotics firms. On the competitive side, Niqo cites firms such as Verdant Robotics, Ecorobotix and Carbon Robotics in the U.S. spot-spray and weeding space, while noting John Deere’s See & Spray occupies a different broad-acre, higher-speed segment.
Niqo sees near-term U.S. opportunities in turf grass and onions and is bullish on markets in the Global South where dedicated labor is harder to secure. The company’s stated sales target for the 2026-27 financial year is to become profitable at the group level, a milestone Rao describes as key to self-directed growth decisions.
Photo - Elaine Watson
Photo - agfundernews.com
