Can AI Detect This Potato?

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SiftAI Inspects Potatoes So You Don’t Have To

Finally, a machine that can truly free us from the monotony of tuber inspections! Westborough, Massachusetts based Smart Vision Works is crowing about the SiftAI Robotic Sorter, a robotic arm plus computer vision system, which is now federally approved for final inspection of potatoes. The system inspects for greening, cracks, odd shapes, mud, sprouts, bruises, fungus and rot, conforming to government standards that fewer than 5% of the potatoes that reach consumers can be substandard.

Drone Delivery Takes Off Worldwide

Wing is taking a page out of Zipline’s playbook, as it’s started delivering blood samples via drone. Centered around two hospitals in London, the Alphabet-backed company is doing about 10 deliveries per weekday. Over in China, Meituan is looking to expand its drone food delivery ambitions, as it looks to take to the skies of Hong Kong, after successful pilots in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Back stateside, Airbound just closed on a $1.7 million seed round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The startup has designed a novel lightweight drone with a proprietary blended wing body tail-sitter design, called TRT, that aims to cut delivery costs by two orders of magnitude.

New Funding for Neo Proteins & Modified Plants

These are a bit outside our usual coverage areas, but we figured they’re interesting to anyone worried about the future of food or our planet… Elicit Plant just closed on a $48 million Series B, led by Carbyne Equity Partners. The French startup enhances plant health in the face of environmental stress and will use the cash to expand into the U.S. Meanwhile, San Diego-based Plantible Foods closed on a $30M Series B, led by Piva Capital and Siddhi Capital, to produce protein derived from duckweed, a quick-growing aquatic plant. Also in SoCal, LA-based OceanWell closed an $11M Series A for a modular, deep-sea water farming concept.

In Other (AV) News

Imagry looks to apply mapping-free autonomous vehicle tech to the bus industry. Baidu’s low cost robotaxis rankle U.S. competitors. Uber reported to invest in Pony AI’s upsized IPO.