Smart Farm Robotix and the EIC Accelerator: A Weeding Robot

Smart Farm Robotix, a Sofia start-up co-founded by Rossen Kolev with his former classmates Rossen Dimov and Veselin Georgiev, builds a solar-powered robot that uses cameras and artificial intelligence to find weeds between crop rows and kill them with a focused beam of light, without herbicides. Kolev says most European weeding robots are designed for the flat, moist fields of Northern Europe and struggle on the hilly, dry, compacted ground of Southern Europe, according to the Center for Data Innovation. The EIC Accelerator's RoboAIweeder project has an EU contribution of €2,360,937 towards a total cost of €3,372,767 and runs from June 2024 to November 2026, according to CORDIS. The company says the project aims to take its technology to technology readiness level 8, or pre-market launch.

In September 2026 Kolev told Forbes Bulgaria that the company had five robots working in fields and two more being built, and aimed for 12 to 15 by the end of the year, according to Forbes Bulgaria. It rents the robots to farmers for a seasonal fee per hectare, which it calls weeding as a service, and plans to take its first sales orders in 2027 for delivery in 2028 and to reach an operating profit in 2029. Forbes Bulgaria reported that the company's revenue of 1.2 million leva at the end of 2024 came from grants, not from its core business.

Where Smart Farm Robotix Stands Now

The company is raising a €2 million seed round at a pre-money valuation of €8 million. It says the round is 85% allocated, with Vitosha Ventures' second fund as lead and the EIC Fund or European Investment Bank still in due diligence for a combined €1.5 million, and €200,000 committed by business angels, according to Smart Farm Robotix. In July 2026 Vitosha Ventures named it among the first ten investments from its €34 million Fund II, according to The Recursive. Kolev told Forbes Bulgaria that half of the roughly €2 million is expected from the EIC. The money is for building more robots, regional centres in Bulgaria and a first foreign subsidiary in Greece.

The Technology: A Beam of Light Instead of Herbicide

The robot's AI models are trained in-house on thousands of images of weeds and crops and run on onboard computers, so the robot works without an internet connection. It uses standard GPS to mark field boundaries and its cameras to steer between rows. The beam targets an area of 3 to 4 square centimetres, killing the weed without disturbing the soil. Early versions had one weeding unit; the company is testing up to 12 at once. Its main customers are lavender and essential oil growers, where young plants are most vulnerable to weeds, and vegetable farms. Kolev told Forbes Bulgaria that the goal is to raise a robot's daily coverage from 100 metres of rows to 500 to 2,000 metres.

What the EIC Award Promised, and What the Record Shows

RoboAIweeder promised a fully autonomous, lightweight weeding robot for hard soils, hilly ground and arid climates. The project ends in November 2026, so it is too early to judge it. The record shows a working prototype, field pilots near Sofia and Kazanlak in 2025 and a small rental fleet, but no sales and a daily coverage far below what Kolev wants.

1. Autonomous weeding robotDeliveredFive in fields.
2. Field validationUnder way2025 pilots.
3. Pre-market launchRentals onlySales from 2027.
4. Private investmentIn progressSeed round open.

The Money

Public grants dominate Smart Farm Robotix's funding. The company lists €2.83 million in grants, including €207,000 from Bulgaria's National Innovation Fund, and €130,000 from private investors. The EIC grant alone is 80% of that total.

What Cannot Be Checked

Why Europe Should Care

Weeding robots have proved a hard business in Europe. Forbes Bulgaria reported that France's Naïo Technologies entered creditor protection in 2025 after its revenue fell from €4 million in 2021 to €2.4 million in 2024, and that Denmark's AgroIntelli, maker of the Robotti, went insolvent. Smart Farm Robotix is betting that renting cheaper robots to Southern European farmers will avoid the same fate.

The Verdict

Smart Farm Robotix and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.