AI Robots for Farms
Bringing sustainable, scalable farming to life
This is Startup Pirate #126, a newsletter about technology, entrepreneurship, and startups. Made in Greece. If you’re not a subscriber, hit the button below and come aboard:
AI Robots for Farms
Konstantinos Kandylas is a farmer-turned-engineer whose family grows aromatic plants in the Kilkis region of Central Macedonia. Today, he runs Terra Robotics with fellow roboticist and large-scale AI systems expert Petros Katsileros, and agronomist/economist Ioannis Bakatsis, building an agritech product that kills weeds with AI-guided lasers.
Kandylas dialled in from Germany, fresh off a flight to pitch Terra Robotics at a major expo, while Katsileros joined our chat from HQ in Thessaloniki. The duo has logged thousands of road miles across Europe — from the Netherlands to Italy — demoing their AI laser weeder to some of the continent’s biggest producers. Where did this begin? At the very top of our conversation was my favourite question of how and why.
“During my studies, I spent weekends at our family farm to help my father in the field,” Kandylas said. “Every year we faced the same problem: weeding.” Weeding is a vital process for removing unwanted plants that steal sunlight, water, and nutrients from high-value crops. It’s brutally time-sensitive as fast-growing weeds can overwhelm crops if you miss the window. Every year, weeds destroy enough food to feed 1 billion people.
Most farmers rely on chemical weed killers, but that only adds more fuel to the problem, as weeds grow stronger from cumulative impacts of repeated applications over time. Meanwhile, farmers face increasing regulatory pressure to use fewer chemicals, creating a deadlock. “We had an organic crop at the farm, hence we couldn’t use herbicides. We had to remove the weeds by hand, and when you need workers most, you can’t find them”, he continued.
Kandylas was a racing car engineer and engineering student at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he met Katsileros, a member of the robotics and AI research group. In 2019, they started developing autonomous vehicles that could roam a field autonomously, under user surveillance and with user intervention. Bakatsis, a childhood friend of Kandylas, joined as the third co-founder, rounding out the team’s core expertise. This was their early prototype:
Autonomous navigation served as the testbed, and they later added precision weeding. “With the autonomous vehicle, you replace one driver,” Kandylas added. “With the autonomous weeder, you replace ten or more people. That’s the farmer’s biggest pain point.” They developed TerraWeeder, a tractor attachment that uses computer vision as the farmer drives across the crop to map weeds versus crops, then zaps the weeds with laser technology. This is what their solution looks like today:
They started with high-value, sensitive crops such as baby-leaf greens, but the system is built to work across crops, weeds, and soil types. Katsileros argues existing weed-control tech underserves farmers: it’s either prohibitively expensive or relies on heavy machinery that compacts and damages fields. “Farmers need something flexible and modular,” he said. “So we designed LaserWeeder as a modular product where you can add or remove units as needed, so it fits any farm.”
Under the hood, the differentiators are manufacturing complexity, modular design, pricing, and precision. LaserWeeder packs cameras, sensors, and onboard compute to calculate, in real time and with millimetre-level accuracy, the exact position of each target and command the laser beams to home in on it. As the tractor moves, laser beams target weeds often <2 cm wide, which is no small feat on uneven terrain and in –5° to 45°C. Early deployments in Greece and abroad report up to 70% weed reduction, cutting herbicide use and costs.
Terra Robotics now counts a team of 13 in Thessaloniki, with a mix of business and engineering — many straight out of Aristotle University’s labs. The startup has raised over €2 million from Uni.Fund, Genesis Ventures, Zeno Capital, and angel investors to meet growing demand from European producers.
We closed on what’s next for precision agriculture. “Ground-truth at 50 cm is the unlock,” Kandylas said. “It’s where satellites and drones fall short. Most farm decisions still ride on tacit know-how from growers and agronomists. We’re turning that into real-time, structured data. From there, the roadmap is wide open: chemical-free, more sustainable, and radically efficient farming, built as a solution from farmers, for farmers.”
Top News
2025 Startup Compensation Report for Greece by Marathon
We’re excited to share this year’s Startup Compensation Report for Greece. With data from 24 companies and 1,700+ employees, this year’s edition, led by Sanne Goslinga, offers salary and equity insights across the startup ecosystem in Greece. The image below provides a quick glance at salaries for some popular roles. Head over to the full report and dashboard here.
Made in Greece Space Program
Greece is moving to onshore key parts of its space industry with a made in Greece plan that includes launching two SAR micro-satellites in November under a €200m national microsatellite program, standing up a domestic production line for microsats from 2026, and building a government Space Hub to turn satellite data into services for agriculture, forests, water, geospatial monitoring, and security. The roadmap targets a 13-satellite constellation with full operational capability by late 2026, alongside a future large government satellite for secure communications. Read more here.
Greek AI Startup Accelerator
Applications are now open for the Greek AI Startup Accelerator. This is a three-month program launched under the OpenAI for Greece partnership with the Hellenic Government, OpenAI, and Endeavor Greece to back AI-first founders building locally and scaling globally. Check what the program offers.
Join a Startup
Greece-based job opportunities you might find interesting:
Piq Energy (power grid simulation and analysis): Full Stack Engineer
Delian (defence AI): Autonomy (MLOps) Software Engineer
Wonderful (agent platform for enterprises): AI Strategy
Caresma (elder care): Founder Associate
Pod Network (layer 1 blockchain): Content & Growth Strategist
Additionally, you can find more jobs here.
Fundings
Spotawheel raises €300m in equity and debt financing to scale its used-car platform.
VR/AR training for defence Realiscape raises funding from EFA Group.
Members-only social app Dion picks up $2m.
Exits
ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW) acquires open banking and payment solutions Payment Components.
Layer 2 blockchain Ithaca joins Tempo, the payments blockchain by Stripe and Paradigm. I previously hosted Ithaca’s CEO and Paradigm’s Partner, Georgios Konstantopoulos, to chat about building in crypto.
2050 Materials joins forces with Once For All Group to bring climate data into European supply-chain and compliance workflows.
fal acquires Remade (YC-backed) to bolster its generative media platform for developers and creative teams.
New Funds
Elikonos Capital announces €175m first close for Elikonos 3, a growth fund targeting Greek SMEs.
Events
10 PyData Piraeus Meetup on Nov 14
Patras Tech Talk 2025.11 on Nov 15
Angular Athens 28th Meetup on Nov 24
BrowserStack QA Meetup on Nov 27
Supabase Athens Meetup on Dec 2
That’s all for this week. Tap the heart ❤️ below if you liked this piece. It helps me understand which themes you like best and what I should do more.
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Alex