Robotics Plus: the NZ agritech robotics company Yamaha bought

New Zealand’s farms and orchards have a labour problem: the work is physical, seasonal and increasingly hard to staff. Robotics Plus, based in Tauranga, has spent more than a decade building machines to take on that work and in 2025 it became one of the country’s clearest agritech success stories when Japan’s Yamaha Motor acquired it outright.

How it started

Robotics Plus is the product of an unlikely pairing. Steve Saunders, a Bay of Plenty horticulture entrepreneur with decades in packhouses and orchards, had long seen that labour shortages would eventually force the industry to automate. Dr Alistair Scarfe, a Massey University engineer, had just written a PhD on an autonomous kiwifruit harvester. The two met when Saunders visited Massey with a Zespri industry group to give the mechatronics team feedback. Saunders backed Scarfe’s work and Robotics Plus was founded in 2008, built to develop mechanisation, automation, robotics and sensor technology for horticulture and other primary industries.

What it builds

The company’s early projects were practical, industry-specific tools, a quad-bike kiwifruit pollination system and a robotic apple packer that was trialled in both New Zealand and the large packhouses of the United States. Its flagship is now Prospr: an autonomous, multi-purpose hybrid vehicle designed to work in orchards and vineyards, handling tasks such as spraying and weed control, with one person able to oversee several machines remotely via an app. Robotics Plus has also developed other automation, including a robotic log scanner for forestry.

The Yamaha story

Yamaha Motor first invested in Robotics Plus in 2017, beginning a long strategic partnership. In early 2025 it went further, acquiring the company outright to form the foundation of a new global business, Yamaha Agriculture, focused on autonomous equipment and AI-powered tools for specialty-crop growers. Crucially, the deal kept Robotics Plus’ operations, engineering and intellectual-property development in Tauranga, with its team, around 130 people, staying on. For a New Zealand hardware company, being chosen as the platform for a global player’s agriculture ambitions is a significant validation.

Why it matters

Much of New Zealand’s startup success story is software, but Robotics Plus is a reminder that the country can build serious hardware and robotics companies too, and export them. It tackles the same structural pressures as the wider sector: labour shortages, productivity and sustainability. But it does so with physical machines that have to work reliably in real orchards and prove cost-effective for growers. It sits alongside companies like Halter as evidence of New Zealand’s agritech depth and features in New Zealand agritech companies to watch and New Zealand farm automation startups.

Sources: NZ Herald · Robotics Plus · Rural Delivery