LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Intellectual property investment company Frontier IP announced on Monday that Innovate UK has awarded its portfolio company Fieldwork Robotics an £84,000 continuity grant to accelerate the development of its agricultural robot technology during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The AIM-traded firm said the grant would be used to support its plans to expand its team and develop facilities amid growing interest in its technology from potential industry partners.

Frontier IP holds a 26.9% equity stake in Fieldwork, which it said was currently focused on developing technology to harvest soft fruit and vegetables to help growers address the widespread issues around human labour shortages.

Such issues have reportedly been exacerbated by Covid-19 and its impact on the movement of people internationally, and the introduction of social distancing requirements.

Fieldwork, a University of Plymouth spin out, announced it had won a £547,250 Innovate UK 'Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund' grant in April 2019 to accelerate the development of its technology, which was part of a £671,484 project with other partners including the University of Plymouth and the National Physical Laboratory.

"Fieldwork Robotics is addressing the long-standing problems soft-fruit and vegetable growers have faced in recruiting enough human labour to harvest their crops," said Fieldwork's chief executive officer Rui Andres.

"Covid-19 has only made these problems worse.

"We are very grateful to Innovate UK and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund for their continued support."

Frontier IP said Fieldwork had since enjoyed strong progress, having completed field trials with some of the largest soft fruit growers in the UK, and raising £0.32m through an initial equity fund raise in January.

It also announced a collaboration with Robert Bosch in July to optimise the robot's arms and software development to reduce cost and increase speed, as part of a drive towards full-scale commercial production.

Fieldwork had also progressed in developing further applications of the technology to harvest other fruit and vegetables in addition to raspberries.

"We would like to thank Innovate UK for its ongoing support for Fieldwork Robotics," said Frontier IP chief executive officer Neil Crabb.

"We are seeing significant industrial interest in the company's technology above the recently-announced agreement with Bosch.

"We remain confident about Fieldwork's long-term prospects."

At 1545 BST, shares in Frontier IP Group were down 0.76% at 65p.

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