Grover at Gilroy

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.