In 2022, Charlie Wu was studying computer science at Cornell University when he had a realization that would change modern agriculture. Inspired by his grandparents who were apple farmers in China, Wu discovered through conversations with world-leading fruit professors that even the largest farms in America had virtually no idea what was actually growing in their fields. Farmers relied on manual sampling, inspecting only tiny fractions of their crops to make critical decisions about chemicals, labor, and harvest. Wu dropped out of Cornell, became a Thiel Fellow, and founded Orchard Robotics to solve this fundamental problem.
Today, Orchard Robotics is building the AI farmer that automates America's farms through precision data collection. The company's FruitScope Vision system mounts on tractors and farm vehicles, capturing ultra-high-resolution images of every fruit as farmers drive through their fields. This data flows into the FruitScope OS platform, where growers can make informed decisions about pruning, spraying, irrigation, and harvesting. The company has raised over $25 million in funding from investors including Quiet Capital, Shine Capital, and General Catalyst, and its technology is now deployed across some of the largest apple, grape, blueberry, and cherry farms in the nation. By giving farmers complete visibility into their crops, Orchard is making agriculture more profitable, efficient, and sustainable.
