Eternal.ag, a Cologne-based AgTech startup building autonomous harvesting robots for greenhouses, today announced that it has exited stealth mode and raised €8 million in funding to fuel European expansion and extend the technology’s capabilities to new crop types.
The funding was secured from Simon Capital, Oyster Bay Venture Capital, EquityPitcher Ventures, and Backbone Ventures.
“Autonomous robots only work if they can handle real-world variability between plants, layouts, and daily operations. We develop and validate our robots using simulation-first development. That allows us to train, test, and fail safely in virtual greenhouses — cutting iteration cycles from months to days. Once deployed, every robot action feeds data back into the system, which is designed to learn, improve and scale,” said Renji John, CEO and co-founder of Eternal.ag.
Founded in 2025 by Renji John and Sherry Kunjachan, Eternal.ag develops fully autonomous robots that perform greenhouse crop work without human operators.
According to the company, greenhouse labour availability is declining quickly, with Europe witnessing a decrease of up to 30% since 2010. Forecasts indicate this declining trend will persist, resulting in structural staffing shortages for growers.
The German startup claims that its robots enable greenhouses to operate reliably and continuously, even when labour is unavailable or inconsistent, by automating repetitive, physically demanding harvesting work. By 2040, the company envisions fully automated greenhouse operations driven by robotics, requiring no manual labour.
Its first commercial product to launch is Harvester, a fully autonomous harvesting robot designed for tomato greenhouses. The company states that Harvester operates up to 22 hours a day consistently and works as part of an intelligent AI-powered system to ensure the quality of produce and cut. It is built as a modular system, and the platform is designed to expand over time with additional robotic functions to better serve broader greenhouse operations.
Niklas Leske, Principal at Simon Capital, said, “Climate change, labour shortages, and rising demand are pushing food production to its limits. Greenhouse horticulture is one of the most efficient and sustainable ways to grow fresh produce year-round. Yet, 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. eternal.ag’s experienced team has a deep understanding of what growers are up against and has developed a solution to tackle this in a sustainable and measured way.”
The company plans to use this capital to accelerate product development, expand commercial deployments across Europe, and extend to additional crop types.
Eternal.ag has a team of 26 employees so far, working across Europe and India, with its headquarters in Cologne and offices in Bengaluru.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/03/colognes-eternal-ag-exits-stealth-with-e8-million-to-automate-greenhouse-harvesting-with-ai-powered-robots/
