Robot model
Grover
Iron Ox (founded 2015, San Carlos, California; founder Brandon Alexander, with greenhouses in Gilroy, California and Lockhart, Texas) built autonomous robotic…
- Manufacturer
- Iron Ox
- Form factor
- agriculture
- Maturity
- commercial
- Lifecycle
- discontinued
- Deployments
- 2
The verified answer
As of Sep 2026, DEPLOY verifies Grover, a agriculture by Iron Ox (commercial): 2 verified deployments on record. 5 sources back the record.
discontinuedDiscontinued. The product or service is no longer actively pursued by the maker.
Overview
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.
Verified vs. claimed
- Maturity stage
- commercial(Commercially deployed with revenue-generating operations.)
- Sources on file
- View all sources →
Key facts
Payload
Autonomy level
Form factor
Funding
Launch date
Specs
Crop
Notes
Products
Form Factor
Autonomy level
Data & sources
Press releases
1
News coverage
2
Web sources
2
5 sources backing this record.View all →
Autonomy: verified vs claimed
- What it actually does
- Autonomous
Pricing
No verified price is on record for Grover. Physical-AI systems are often sold through enterprise contracts or operated as a service rather than at a public list price.
Deployments (2)
Iron Ox 535000 sq ft indoor farming facility in Lockhart TX.
- Grover at Gilroyoperational
Iron Ox Grover autonomous mobile robot deployed at Iron Ox greenhouse in Gilroy, CA.
Grover on the deployment map
View the global mapWhere Grover is verified operating. Explore the deployment map by place and type.
Recent activity
Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.
- Verified media addedJun 11, 2026
Watch Robots Grow Food Without Farmers
- Record createdJun 3, 2026
Added to the verified registry
- Deployment recordedJan 1, 2026
at Lockhart, Texas, USA (535K sq ft facility)
- Deployment verifiedVerifiedJun 1, 2024
at Gilroy
- Lifecycle state verifiedVerifiedJan 1, 2023
active -> discontinued
Safety record
No incidents on record for Grover.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Sources (5)
- https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/03/iron-ox-lays-off-50-amounting-to-nearly-half-its-staff/
- https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iron-ox-launches-grover-an-all-new-autonomous-mobile-robot-301413565.html
- https://www.crosslinkcapital.com/news/iron-ox-raises-53m-in-series-c-funding/
- https://www.bluerhinocapital.com/news/its-inevitable
- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/iron-ox-is-disrupting-agriculture-with-robots-and-ai.html
Common questions
What is Grover?
How much does Grover cost?
Is Grover actually deployed in the real world?
Who makes Grover?
Where is Grover deployed?
Can you buy Grover?
What are alternatives to Grover?
How does Grover compare to VMS V310?
Is Grover a top agriculture?
What is Grover's maturity stage?
Is Grover still being made?
Is Grover safe?
Methodology: Verified · 5 sources (1 primary) · last reviewed 2026-07-22
Verification posture
Verified
High confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-07-22
Maturity + lifecycle
Maturity stage: commercial
Lifecycle: discontinued
Architectural position
Cohort: agriculture
Sources by quality tier
- 2
- unclassified
- Unclassified source
- 1
- secondary-industry-publication
- Industry publication
- 1
- primary-company-ir
- Company IR disclosure
- 1
- secondary-established-publication
- Established publication
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for Grover.Recent coverage
Grover in third-party press
Attention vs reality over time
Media mentions per month (area) against verified deployment events (dots). A press spike over a flat deployment line is the hype gap, drawn over time.
In the press
Recent coverage mentioning Grover from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
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Reports of layoffs at Iron Ox
Significant layoffs reported at Iron Ox, an agriculture technology company using robotics and AI for autonomous greenhouse farming.
Iron Ox is disrupting agriculture with robots and AI
Silicon Valley-based Iron Ox uses robots and AI to automate greenhouse farming, reducing water usage while producing high-quality produce.
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /models/iron-ox-grover.md
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/models/9099e316-1939-414a-8fbf-35fd26bd602d
- Revision history: /models/iron-ox-grover/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Video
Reality vs attention
Grover draws attention at the 75th percentile but verifies reality at the 42nd percentile among ag robots. Hype Gap +32.4, 10th widest among ag robots.
6-month trend
Analysis
Thin deployment record; scale validation still in progress.
Signal flags
Dimension breakdown
Verified signal
Attention (reach, not merit)
DEPLOY Intelligence scores are computed from verified registry data: confirmed deployments, disclosed funding rounds, regulatory filings, active job listings, video viewership, and press coverage. Confidence ratings reflect data availability. Scores update nightly.
DEPLOY Indices — verified vs claimed
Last computed: Sep 2, 2026