LYRO Robotics was recently awarded $797,000 as part of the competitive Accelerating Commercialisation service of the Australian Government’s Entrepreneurs’ Programme. It was my pleasure to work with founders Juxi Leitner and Nicole Robinson and the team to finalise the plan for trial deployments and full commercialisation of the LYRO Produce Packing Robots with interested customers.
This project is a first-of-its-kind to commercialise an intelligent, movable multi-produce robots-as-a-service (RaaS) for the horticultural sector. In Australia alone this sector is worth $15 billion, with backpackers making up to 80% of the fruit picking and packing workforce. Whilst recent travel restrictions were an obvious problem for the sector, a heavy reliance on an inconsistent labour force (both in supply and skill) is strategically not in farmers’ or Australia’s best interest. LYRO solves these problems by providing on-demand packing services that reliably produce consistent output.
Packing avocados, capsicums, eggplants and zucchinis in precise patterns creates dramatic operational efficiencies. Additionally, with robots available 24×7 with high accuracy, this value proposition is unmatched by inconsistent seasonal labour. To reach this point LYRO has worked hard for years on their artificial intelligence algorithm, combined with their innovations in camera vision and hardware technologies.
With all this born, developed and to be made in Australia, we can all look forward to a better future for the Australian AI, AgTech and Manufacturing sectors.
