Eternal.ag, a German agritech startup, has launched its first commercial product, Harvester. Harvester is a fully autonomous harvesting robot designed for tomato greenhouses and offers a solution to widespread industry labor shortages.
Greenhouses are increasingly essential for securing the year-round supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, being far more resilient to seasonal weather, climate change, land shortages and pests than outdoor farming.
However, greenhouse labor availability is falling rapidly – in Europe, by as much as 30 percent since 2010 – and forecasts say this trend will continue, leaving growers with structural staffing shortages.
By automating physically demanding harvesting work, eternal.ag’s robots enable greenhouses to operate reliably and continuously, even when labor is unavailable or inconsistent. By 2040, the company envisions fully automated greenhouse operations powered by robotics, requiring no manual operations.
Eternal.ag’s Harvester operates up to 22 hours a day consistently and works as part of an intelligent AI-powered system to ensure quality of produce and cut. Built as a modular system, the platform is designed to expand over time with additional robotic functions to better serve broader greenhouse operations.
“Autonomous robots only work if they can handle real-world variability between plants, layouts and daily operations,” said Renji John, CEO and co-founder of eternal.ag.
“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.”
Eternal.ag has raised €8 million in venture capital funding to support the development of Harvester and a number of new products, expand its commercial deployments across Europe, and extend to additional crop types.
The funding comes from investors Simon Capital, Oyster Bay Venture Capital, EquityPitcher Ventures and Backbone Ventures.
Wilco Schoonderbeek, former director of investments at the horticulture investor Horticoop, is a Board Observer for eternal.ag, contributing his expertise in horticulture investment and strategy.
Schoonderbeek said: “When labor is uncertain, everything else becomes uncertain. Greenhouse operations need resilience, not temporary fixes or pushing problems into the future.
“Automation solves the biggest bottleneck that growers are facing. The robot shows up where the work needs to happen and just does it. Growers finally have predictable operations.”
Founded in 2025 by Renji John and Sherry Kunjachan, eternal.ag has built a team of 26 employees so far, working across Europe and India, with headquarters in Cologne and offices in Bengaluru.
