Then, Now, and Next: Our Chapters at Scythe

Then /Now /NExt

Reflections from Scythe cofounders Jack Morrison and Davis Foster

8 years ago we set out to build a new breed of outdoor equipment that brought technology and nature closer together. We’ve had an incredible journey filled with amazing Scythers, big wins, hilarious failures, and a million milestones large and small along the way. Today we are excited to announce another big one.

A New Partnership

We’re sharing today that Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI) of Utah has acquired Scythe Robotics to accelerate our shared vision of alleviating humanity’s need to do repetitive, dangerous manual work. At Scythe we focused intently on building the commercial mower that would scale landscaping workers’ abilities to care for outdoor spaces and over the last 25 years, an incredible legacy in robotics, ASI has automated hundreds of vehicles across dozens of domains. Scythe and M.52 will become part of the ASI Landscaping Division along with their autonomous fairway mower.

We’re excited to continue to support all our M.52 customers with the same high level of service and world-class autonomous machines that we’ve always provided, while also expanding our impact by bringing Scythe Sight and the autonomy that powers M.52 to ASI’s Mobius® platform through this acquisition. Scythe Customers will see no impact to their M.52 operations with the same great account managers, customer support, and field service teams continuing to help manage the transition to autonomous operations from our HQ in Colorado and across the country. M.52 development will also continue within the ASI Landscaping team to deliver product improvements to our customers.

A Look Back

Starting from experiments with a stereo camera taped to the front of Jack’s Cub Cadet, we’ve been on a mission to build the ultimate mowing machine, leading to M.52 and its unmatched abilities. We started down this path because we felt autonomous machines would be the most transformative technology in 100+ years, freeing humanity from a whole class of dull, dirty and dangerous work.

Even in 2017, artificial intelligence, machine learning, sensing, and embedded computing were showing early signs of exponential improvements that would catapult robots into every market, and we believed (and still believe) the Green Industry deserved radically better tools to take care of our planet. Combine these two and you end up with Scythe’s mission: bring technology to bear on improving humanity’s care for the natural world, starting with turning tall grass into short grass.

There have been many highlights over the years and accomplishments we’re proud to have been a part of, starting with assembling the best team in the business – so many truly dedicated Scythers over the years who poured themselves into the mission and achieved great results. Together we built and fielded 8 generations of autonomous mowers culminating in cutting billions of square feet of grass last year with zero emissions for healthier, quieter, and better maintained green spaces across the country.

Scythe has left its mark on the green industry, proving that autonomy and electrification are both inevitable and superior to traditional ICE manual mowers. We’ve seen a seismic shift in the industry from curious-but-skeptical to the strong embrace and excitement we see and hear in industry conversations today. There’s no turning the clock back; the future is greener, quieter, and radically more efficient.

Together with ASI we have a huge opportunity to terraform the earth and build the future. We have joined ASI to integrate all our technologies and learning into the core ASI Platform, accelerating the deployment of autonomous vehicles across a range of industries. It’s exciting to have the opportunity to still advance M.52 development while massively broadening our potential impact. We learned uncountable lessons through building and growing Scythe, and we look forward to bringing those to bear on ASI’s opportunities and challenges ahead!

Gratitude

We’d like to close with a thank you to everyone who has helped push this mission forward in all sorts of ways over the last 8 years. To all those who worked alongside us on the Scythe team, thank you for your relentless effort and all the ambition, tenacity, teamwork, and passion – the whole truly has been greater than the sum of its parts. To our customers, thank you for your trust, feedback and energy in deploying first of their kind electric autonomous machines onto beautiful properties across the country; Scythe and M.52 are better for your partnership. And to everyone else we’ve worked with along the way, vendors, friends, investors, industry partners, and more, thank you for your part in the Scythe journey so far.

The journey continues under a larger umbrella and with a broader mandate. Vive Terra!

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/Jack Morrison and Davis Foster

Co-founders, Scythe Robotics