Raven Industries announced that it has entered into agreements to acquire the remaining equity of DOT Technology Corp. The two companies entered into an agreement in Oct. 2019 with Raven acquiring a majority ownership in the robot maker. This week's announcement brings DOT completely under Raven ownership.

According to a media statement, the added investment is "further indication of Raven's confidence in its position to bring these innovations to market and expand its market share in precision ag technology."

DOT is the developer of the "Dot Power Platform," an autonomous power unit with the ability to pair with a wide range of implements for agricultural production. The system will offer a variety of labor-saving solutions to farmers and Ag Retailers. Fusing DOT, and the recently acquired Smart Ag autonomous perception and path planning technology, with Raven's core technology platforms in guidance, steering, and machine control enables the company to deliver autonomous solutions and greatly accelerate long-term growth in Applied Technology. The company is currently moving forward with commercialization of Raven Autonomy and will be expanding its portfolio with new offerings, which will increase the value of autonomy to end-users at a rapid pace.

Related:Ag autonomy company enters new agreement

New technologies to come

"We see tremendous synergies between our current business and in the investments we have made in DOT and Smart Ag, an Iowa-based autonomy company which we acquired last November," said Wade Robey, Executive Director of Raven Autonomy. "We are very excited to be a leader in ag autonomy, and we are committed to working with our customers and partners to help bring these exciting new technologies to ag markets around the globe."

He added that developing solutions for ag autonomy expands the total addressable market served by the Applied Technology Division by "several billion dollars and positions the business for tremendous growth over the next several years."

Raven has long been committed to maximizing operational efficiencies through its core offering of application and machine control platforms. The company's initiative into autonomous solutions is an extension of that core. As the demand of the overall farming operation and compliance requirements become more complex, the need for more efficient utilization of resources is critical.

In the media release the company commented that its autonomous solutions "will become an essential part of agricultural equipment technology for ag retailers and growers and enable them to drive significant productivity improvements in the future."

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