Nanovel robotic citrus harvester is the latest attempt to automate one of agriculture’s hardest field tasks, as the Israeli startup refines a system designed to identify and pick oranges deep within dense canopies without bruising the fruit.
Why it matters for the Nanovel robotic citrus harvester
Unlike spraying or weeding, harvesting citrus requires recognizing fruit, leaves and branches in three dimensions, navigating through foliage, clearing obstructions, and cutting stems cleanly. Nanovel’s founder and CEO, Isaac Mazor, said specialty crop harvesting remains among the most challenging problems in agricultural robotics.
Established in 2018, the company has developed a patented autonomous harvester that reaches up to 1.5 meters inside trees using robotic arms. The system grips fruit with a vacuum end-effector, trims stems less than 2 millimeters from the peel, then conveys oranges to bins.
The current platform runs six telescopic arms at once, coordinated by an onboard computer that maps the canopy with computer vision and AI, allocates targets among the arms, and prevents collisions. A remote management layer oversees multiple machines. The vision stack can select by color and size to avoid picking fruit likely to be rejected at the packing house. Defect detection is not yet included.
After a seven-week trial in California last fall with a leading grower and the Citrus Research Board using a tractor-pulled unit, the firm is building a self-driving version. Nanovel plans further trials with prominent growers in southern Europe in 2027, pilot deployments in 2028, and commercial rollout in 2029. The company recently secured a €2.5 million ($2.9 million) grant from the European Innovation Council Accelerator program.
Tech can triple or quadruple productivity of one operator
Mazor said labor can account for about half of citrus production costs, with growers reliant on seasonal workers. He cited manual harvesting costs in the United States of roughly $42 to $43 per 900-pound field bin, compared with $25 to $30 using Nanovel’s technology. Predictability is central to the value case, he added, since fleets can run longer hours and resume quickly after bad weather.
The company’s approach blends automation with human labor. According to Mazor, the optimal setup is for the machine to pick 70 to 80 percent of fruit, with an operator handling the remaining 10 to 15 percent that is hardest to reach. The goal is to triple or quadruple a single operator’s productivity, not to remove that role. Operators approve moves between positions, swap bins, clear occasional obstructions, and decide when to advance, with training taking less than a day. The next-generation self-driving model allows the operator to stand at the rear while the robot moves autonomously to the next station, after which the operator collects leftovers.
Over time, Nanovel expects to create a second revenue stream from data captured during harvest. High-resolution orchard maps could include indicators such as fruit size and sugar content, which could then be correlated with irrigation, crop protection and other agronomic inputs.
$400,000 machine, initially sold outright
Nanovel plans to sell units outright rather than offer harvesting as a service. Management argues that large citrus producers can utilize the equipment 8 to 11 months a year and will want to own the asset. Each machine is expected to sell for about $400,000, with a sub–five-year payback that Mazor believes will improve as performance advances. He noted that tightening labor markets in Europe make the economics more compelling.
The company anticipates partnering with manufacturers and assemblers in markets such as California, Spain, Italy, Taiwan or Australia, marrying a global component supply chain with local integration to reduce shipping costs. Sales will run through local dealers and distributors, which would provide maintenance and service, backed by Nanovel subsidiaries in key regions.
Citrus first, other tree fruits later
The initial focus is on oranges and lemons, which Mazor estimates represent about a $1.5 billion addressable harvesting market in the company’s target geographies. Once established, the platform could expand to clementines, avocados, mangoes and other fruits. In the near term, Nanovel is concentrating on the United States and southern Europe, where labor pressures make automation particularly attractive, though inquiries have also come from Argentina, Chile, Peru and Brazil.
Continuous improvement
Mazor characterized the California trial as a learning phase as well as a validation. He said the firm is working to improve robustness and productivity. While others have pursued robotic citrus pickers, he said no one has yet commercialized an autonomous harvester for fresh-market citrus. By contrast, several apple-harvesting systems twist fruit instead of trimming stems.
The path to profitability
Mazor said the company reached this stage with less than $10 million over its first four years, when the team was small. He contrasted that with larger raises by some ag robotics peers. The €2.5 million EIC grant includes eligibility for an equity investment of up to €4.3 million to anchor a planned round of about €8 million. With that funding, he said, the goal is to reach break-even and generate positive cash flow.
Nanovel robotic citrus harvester outlook
Nanovel is now moving from a tractor-pulled prototype to a self-driving platform while preparing multi-season trials in Europe. If the company maintains fruit quality and improves uptime, management believes large growers could deploy fleets of 10 to 20 machines, each supported by an operator, to stabilize labor needs and reduce costs ahead of a planned 2029 commercial launch.
As growers evaluate automation options, some are also watching how technologies like AI tools for fungal threat alerts are reshaping broader orchard management strategies. The convergence of robotics, data, and sensing could further change how specialty crops are produced and harvested worldwide.
The European Innovation Council Accelerator program, which backed Nanovel’s latest grant, is part of the broader European Innovation Council framework to support high-impact technologies. For Nanovel, access to this support may prove pivotal as it moves from field trials toward commercial scale.