Vincennes ag-tech startup marks official launch
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Officials gathered in Vincennes on Wednesday to mark the official launch of TerraForce, an agriculture technology startup that is developing autonomous robots designed to help large fruit farmers harvest their crops more efficiently.
Founded by CEO Mike Jacob, the company’s platform uses machine learning to detect, grade, and robotically harvest and plant watermelons, pumpkins and cantaloupe.
Jacob said the goal of TerraForce is to help farmers address what he says is a $42 billion labor challenge for farmers by saving them millions of dollars per acre.
“Right now, it’s tough for the fruit we grow in and around Knox County to compete with fruit that comes to us from Mexico, Central America or South America,” Jacob said during Wednesday’s launch event. “The average farmer in Mexico makes about $3,500 a year. I think we pay our workers, which also primarily come from Mexico, $19.57 an hour. So that’s the issue at play here; if we don’t address the costs, our growers won’t be competitive on the global market.”
The platform uses sensors and data algorithms to identify and pick large fruits when they are ripe.
TerraForce said the AI-enabled robotic harvester, packer and planter—set to launch later this year—will save farmers nearly $700 per acre by working 24 hours a day.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Agbioscience podcast with AgriNovus Indiana CEO Mitch Frazier, Jacob said the artificial intelligence aspect of the platform is key.
“One of the things that artificial intelligence does for us is it compresses the development timeline and the amount of resources that we have to allocate to get there,” Jacob said. “Sure, somebody could’ve developed an automated melon harvester a decade or 20 years ago, but the amount of resources it would’ve taken would’ve been completely unreasonable.”
Jacob is also the president of Jacob Farms Inc. in Jasonville, Indiana. He founded TerraForce last year out of The Pantheon, a nonprofit business accelerator in downtown Vincennes, after selling his engineering company in 2023.
“It’s another example of innovation that was created at The Pantheon,” Nichole Like, CEO of The Pantheon, said in written remarks. “Mike was connected with farmers on our Ag Tech Committee and this all began after hearing about how labor costs are increasing over 6% each year.”
Jacob said during Wednesday’s launch event that while the company is working to overcome some barriers when it comes to manufacturing the robot, it will be running in the field this year.
TerraForce closed on an oversubscribed $375,000 fundraising round last month that it said would help bring its product to market. Jacob said the company plans to have another fundraising round this summer to help finance more units.
Jacob said he wants to continue to grow TerraForce in Vincennes and support the local economy.
“We’ll develop a product. We’ll innovate. We’ll keep growing. We’ll keep delivering services and results that enable our important users to be competitive and stay in business for generations to come.”