DEPLOYDatabase

Company

Iron Ox

US Indoor/greenhouse robotic-farming company (San Carlos CA) built around the Grover mobile robot; defunct as a produce company (rebranded to Inevitable Tech…

Founded
2015
HQ
San Carlos, California, USA
Status
defunct (pivoted to Inevitable Tech ~Jun 2023; cessation 2024-06-30)

The verified answer

As of Sep 2026, DEPLOY verifies Iron Ox: 1 model, 2 deployments across 2 regions, $98.0M raised. 9 sources back the record.

CategoryAgricultural robots

Overview

US Indoor/greenhouse robotic-farming company (San Carlos CA) built around the Grover mobile robot; defunct as a produce company (rebranded to Inevitable Tech ~2023; cessation 2024-06-30).

Verified record

Verified deployments
2 deployments on file
Active incidents
None on file

Valuation of record

DEPLOY VERIFIED
$122M (reported, approximate)as of Aug 2019

Priced roundSeries A post-money

See the full valuations ranking →

Key facts

Product

Grover autonomous greenhouse module-transport robot + robotic arms; sold produce to CA retail.

Wind-down

Defunct as produce co; rebranded Inevitable Tech ~2023; formal cessation 2024-06-30; greenhouse sold off.

CEO

Brandon Alexander (Co-Founder)

Investorssee investors

Pathbreaker Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Amplify Partners, ENIAC Ventures, R7 Partners, Y Combinator

Status

SHUT DOWN — company ceased operations. Lockhart, TX greenhouse closed.

Financial stage

Wound down — operations ceased

Data & sources

Press releases

1

News coverage

1

Patent documents

5

Web sources

2

9 sources backing this record.View all →

Retired

Grover

Iron Ox (founded 2015, San Carlos, California; founder Brandon Alexander, with greenhouses in Gilroy, California and Lockhart, Texas) built autonomous robotic indoor and greenhouse hydroponic farming around Grover, an autonomous mobile robot launched in November 2021 that moved 1,000-pound hydroponic plant modules through greenhouses, paired with a scanning booth and robotic arms for plant handling. The registry records it at commercial maturity to reflect a genuine but small-scale historical peak: it actually sold produce, including leafy greens, strawberries, and tomatoes, into California retail such as Whole Foods, Bianchini's, and Mollie Stone's, so it was past pure demonstration, and it raised roughly 98 to 103 million dollars including a $53 million Series C led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures in 2021. The lifecycle state is discontinued because Iron Ox as a robotic-produce company is defunct: about fifty staff, nearly half, were laid off in November 2022, the entity rebranded to Inevitable Tech around June 2023 and pivoted from operating farms to selling agtech propagation technology, and secondary trackers record a formal cessation of operations dated June 30, 2024. Its Lockhart greenhouse was sold off, ultimately to Sensei Farms in September 2025, and ironox.com no longer serves a functioning company site. The funding total varies by source, so the 98-to-103-million range is used rather than a single figure, the cessation date comes from aggregators rather than primary press, and ADM as an investor could not be confirmed and is not asserted.

agricultureView model →

Partnerships

Every company Iron Ox has built with, alongside the ones only announced in a press release.

1 total1 just announced

Most-frequent partners

  1. 1Y Combinator1× joint3 total

Most recent

Iron Ox on the deployment map

View the global map

2 verified deployments across 2 regions, newest verified Jan 2026. Explore where Iron Ox's robots are operating, by place and type.

Free to use on your site, with a link back to DEPLOY.

View the full Iron Ox deployment record →

Free to use on your site, with a link back to DEPLOY.

Relationships

Founders (2)

See all founders across the registry →

Former / Previously (2)

Safety record

No incidents on record for Iron Ox.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →

Operator customers (1)

Recent coverage

Iron Ox in third-party press

Peer companies