Modern tractors are heavy, and their weight crushes the soil they work. Compacted soil drains poorly and grows less. Sabi Agri, a company founded in 2017 in Saint-Beauzire near Clermont-Ferrand, proposes a different machine: a light electric tractor driven by the farmer, followed by driverless robots that copy its work, so that several small machines replace one big one.
The European Innovation Council funded the idea under its Green Deal challenge with €2,318,750 towards a €3.31 million project. By the end of 2024, according to the EU's own report, all three of Sabi Agri's machines were on the market. The company has not said how many it has sold, and its losses rose sharply in 2025.
Company file
- Legal entity
- Sabi Agri SAS, SIREN 831 190 806
- Founded
- 1 August 2017
- Site
- Saint-Beauzire, Puy-de-Dôme, France
- President
- Alexandre Prevault
- Products
- ALPO electric straddle tractor, VOLCAM electric tractor, ZILUS robot
- EIC project
- SWARM, 1 May 2022 to 31 Dec 2024, closed
- Funding type (table)
- Grant first, equity decided later
- Staff
- 20 to 49 (register band)
What Sabi Agri Sells Today
Sabi Agri sells three electric machines. ALPO is a straddle tractor for vineyards and other row crops, VOLCAM a compact electric tractor, and ZILUS an autonomous robot that can work alone or follow a leader. Together they form what the company calls a collaborative fleet: the farmer drives one vehicle and the robots behind it multiply the work done per pass. The company's website presents the machines for vineyards, arboriculture and market gardening, the high-value specialised crops where light machinery is easiest to justify.
What it does not publish is sales. The accounts reported by Societe.com keep revenue confidential, and no customer, fleet size or distributor agreement appears in the public record we found.
The Technology: Many Light Machines Instead of One Heavy One
The physics is simple. The pressure a vehicle puts on the ground depends on its weight and the area of its tyres or tracks. A heavy tractor concentrates many tonnes on a few contact points; a fleet of light machines spreads the same work over many passes of much lower load. The SWARM objective on CORDIS claims a reduction in ground pressure of up to 15 times compared with thermal tractors, with no direct CO2 emissions because the machines are electric.
The harder part is software: making unmanned robots follow a human-driven leader safely across uneven fields. The project report describes ZILUS hardware and software working "in real-world conditions", collaborative two-machine fleet prototypes and a tablet interface for managing the robots' behaviour, together with regulatory compliance work and a patent strategy.
What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows
SWARM ran from 1 May 2022 to 31 December 2024. It promised to scale up the collaborative robotic technology and industrialise the fleet "before market uptake in the EU and the US". The final report says "the ZILUS robot, VOLCAM electric tractor and ALPO electric straddle tractor are on the market", after field demonstrations with operational prototypes.
- A collaborative electric fleetDeliveredTwo-machine fleet prototypes demonstrated in the field.
- Machines on the marketDeliveredAll three machines listed for sale by the end of the project.
- Industrial scale-upNo evidenceNo production volumes, sales or customers published.
- US market uptakeNot seenThe final report contains no US activity.
What Has Happened Since
The Money
The filed accounts show a small manufacturer still losing money. The net loss was €408,832 in 2024, a figure also reported by Pappers, and €866,200 in 2025. Long-term debt fell from €4.29 million to €2.18 million in 2025 while total debt stayed at about €4.3 million. Funding trackers list the EIC among the company's investors, but no EIC Fund investment has been announced.
Why Europe Should Care
Soil health and the decarbonisation of farming are both EU priorities, and they rarely meet in a single product. Electric machinery removes diesel emissions from the field; lighter machinery protects soil structure. Sabi Agri's fleet claims both. The EIC funded it under its challenge for Green Deal innovations for the economic recovery.
What the project promised
An industrialised fleet of electric agroecological robots, taken to market in the EU and the US.
What the record shows
Three machines on sale and a working fleet, but no sales figures, no US presence and a loss that doubled in 2025.
The Verdict
On the market, not yet in the market
SWARM delivered its technical programme: Sabi Agri built the fleet and put all three machines on sale within the project. The EU's report stops there, and so does the public record. With revenue confidential and losses rising, the question is not whether the robots work but whether enough farmers will pay for them. Until the company shows sales, the Green Deal case for the fleet remains a promise.
Sabi Agri has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.
