This week’s AI startup Hedgehog is building the mushroom farms of the future, utilizing robots and AI to eliminate labor and optimize yields.
⚾ The Elevator Pitch
Food production is one of the industries that will be revolutionized by AI/ML, reducing the amount labor it takes to produce an increased amount of food.
Hedgehog is building robotic mushroom farms and using AI to optimize growth conditions to grow mushrooms and fungi for 1/3 of the cost of current leading growers.
👇 The drop down
Site: https://www.hedgehogfoods.com/
Founded: 2022
Team: Jamie Balsillie (CEO) | Wilson Ruotolo (CTO)
🔍 Why we like it
🍄 Fun guys and gals love Fungi
Fungi and mushrooms are meaty, protein-rich, and sustainable, producing the lowest CO2/kg emissions of any meat, grain, or produce. It is a superfood and the food of the future. And the global mushroom market size grew from $57 billion in 2022 to $62 billion in 2023. That’s a lot of mushroom eaters – and future consumers for Hedgehog.
🤖 AI + food production
AI can drastically improve food production. More than 34 million people, including 9 million children, suffer from food insecurity in the United States alone. Optimizing growth conditions, ensuring high food quality, and increasing production are just a few of the changes that we can expect. Companies like Hedgehog are trailblazing this new wave of AI food companies.
🤝 Get involved with Hedgehog
Hedgehog is looking for a badass robotics engineer. If that is you, reach out to them!