The quest to automate greenhouse farming—a notoriously difficult engineering challenge—has received a fresh injection of funding. Cologne-based agritech startup eternal.ag announced Thursday it has raised €8 million to further develop its AI-powered robots designed to harvest tomatoes and, eventually, other crops. The company’s approach centers on a “simulation-first” methodology, training robots in virtual environments before deploying them in real-world greenhouses, a strategy aimed at overcoming the hurdles that have plagued previous attempts at agricultural automation.
For decades, greenhouse operators in Europe have relied heavily on seasonal labor, particularly from Eastern Europe, to manage the delicate and demanding task of harvesting. However, a shrinking labor pool—down roughly 30% since 2010, according to industry reports—is creating a structural challenge for growers, prompting a search for robotic solutions. The appeal is clear: greenhouses offer a controlled environment for year-round production, making them an ideal proving ground for automation, even if the path to reliable, cost-effective deployment has been fraught with setbacks.
A Second Attempt at Greenhouse Robotics
The founder of eternal.ag, Renji John, is no stranger to this challenge. He previously co-founded Honest AgTech, a Dutch startup focused on autonomous greenhouse robots, which ultimately declared bankruptcy in July 2023 due to liquidity issues, as reported by the District Court of Noord-Holland. This new venture, co-founded with Sherry Kunjachan in 2025, appears to be learning from past mistakes. The €8 million investment, which comes from Simon Capital, Oyster Bay Venture Capital, EquityPitcher Ventures, and Backbone Ventures, will be used to accelerate product development, expand commercial deployments across Europe, and broaden the platform’s capabilities to include additional crops beyond tomatoes.
Simulation as a Key Differentiator
What sets eternal.ag apart, according to the company, is its emphasis on simulation-first development. The robots are initially trained and validated within virtual greenhouses powered by NVIDIA Isaac Sim, a platform designed for robotics development. This approach, the company claims, dramatically compresses iteration cycles—reducing them from months to days—and allows for the cost-effective testing of potential failure scenarios in software before deploying hardware in a live greenhouse environment. While the claim of compressing iteration cycles hasn’t been independently verified, the underlying principle aligns with best practices in robotics engineering, where simulation is increasingly used to mitigate risk and accelerate development.
The company’s first commercial product, “Harvester,” is an autonomous tomato harvesting robot designed to operate as part of a broader AI-powered system that manages fruit quality and consistency. It’s designed as a modular platform, suggesting a long-term vision of expanding its capabilities to handle a wider range of greenhouse tasks. Eternal.ag has publicly stated its ambition to achieve fully autonomous greenhouse operations by 2040, eliminating the need for human intervention.
Investor Confidence and the Future of AgTech
The investor group backing eternal.ag demonstrates a clear alignment with the future of agricultural technology. Oyster Bay Venture Capital, a Hamburg-based Food and AgTech fund, manages over €100 million and is backed by the European Investment Fund and KfW. Simon Capital, based in Düsseldorf, has previously invested in companies like waterdrop and Just Spices. EquityPitcher Ventures and Backbone Ventures round out the group, bringing additional expertise and resources to the table.
“Greenhouse horticulture is one of the most efficient and sustainable ways to grow fresh produce year-round,” said Niklas Leske, Principal at Simon Capital, in a statement. “Labour shortages put the industry at risk, and robotics is the only future-proof solution to build a decentralised, resilient food supply chain for the next generation.”
Renji John’s background includes experience at the Boston Consulting Group, an INSEAD MBA, and prior work at Tata Consultancy Services. Information regarding the professional background of co-founder and CTO Sherry Kunjachan is limited to the company’s press materials.
The €8 million in funding will now fuel the next phase of eternal.ag’s development. The company plans to accelerate product development, expand its commercial deployments throughout Europe, and extend its robotic platform to handle a wider variety of crops. The coming years will be critical in determining whether this second attempt at greenhouse robotics can overcome the challenges that have stymied so many others. The company has not yet announced a timeline for the next major milestone, but continued progress in commercial deployments will be a key indicator of success.
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