Elbow Beach is pleased to announce that Charlotte Cane MP visited its portfolio company Fieldwork Robotics last Friday to learn how private capital investment is supporting the development of cutting-edge agricultural technology.

During a visit to the company's facility at Cambridge Innovation Park, the MP for Ely and East Cambridgeshire heard how investment from venture capital firm Elbow Beach has enabled Fieldwork Robotics to accelerate the development of its autonomous berry-harvesting technology, expand its team, increase manufacturing capacity and prepare for commercial deployment with growers in the UK and internationally.

Fieldwork Robotics are the developers of selective, adaptive and modular harvesting robots, for soft-fruit farming, helping growers address labour shortages, improve productivity and reduce food waste. Berry growers worldwide face rising labour costs, a shortage of available fruit pickers, and supply chain pressures that drive up harvesting wages. These challenges increase food waste, push up consumer prices, and contribute to higher climate emissions. Large volumes of soft fruit are lost due to a shortage of pickers. Fieldwork’s autonomous harvesting robots address these issues directly, reducing reliance on seasonal labour, boosting productivity, and operating efficiently across entire farms, helping growers protect margins and scale production sustainably.

Following initial technology development and validation, the company is now entering its scale-up phase, with commercial trials of its autonomous raspberry-harvesting robots taking place on farms across the UK and further international trials planned.

Elbow Beach first backed Fieldwork in 2023, supporting the development and validation of its robotics and AI technology. In April 2026, Elbow Beach returned as lead investor as part of an investment round to help move Fieldwork from technology validation into commercial deployment. The funding is enabling Fieldwork to manufacture new production robots for a two-year harvesting-as-a-service trial with Place UK in Norfolk and at Littywood Farm in Stafford, ahead of planned international trials in Portugal and Australia.

Private capital plays an important role in supporting business growth across the East of England. UK Private Capital data shows that as of 2025, private capital supports 194,000 jobs and 935 businesses across the region and contributes £13billion to regional GDP.

CharlotteCane MP said:

“It was a pleasure to visit Fieldwork Robotics and see first-hand the innovative work taking place right here in my constituency of Ely and East Cambridgeshire.

Our regionis home to some of the world's leading technology and research businesses, and companies like Fieldwork Robotics are showing how that expertise can be applied to real-world challenges. With the backing of investors like Elbow Beach, Fieldwork Robotics is developing advanced robotics for agriculture, helping farmers address labour shortages, improve productivity and strengthen the long-term resilience of food production.

I look forward to following Fieldwork Robotics' progress and the positive contribution it can make to farming both here in the UK and around the world."

DavidFulton, CEO of Fieldwork Robotics, said:

"Charlotte's visit came at the perfect time. It's the UK's hottest summer on record, and extreme weather is already squeezing yields across the country. When labour shortages mean growers can't harvest what they've managed to grow, that waste compounds - and that's exactly the gap our robots are built to close.

It was fantastic to show Charlotte the progress we’ve made with the backing of Elbow Beach, in tackling labour shortages and food waste head on, and to talk through what that investment means for building more resilient, home-grown supply chains here in the UK."

Jonathan Pollock, CEO of Elbow Beach, said:

“We first backed Fieldwork in 2023 when the technology was still being validated. Since then, the team has proven the case: robots that pick reliably, at scale, on real farms. Our funding has helped Fieldwork move from validation into full commercial deployment, with new farm trials underway in the UK and international expansion on the horizon. Charlotte Cane saw that journey first-hand today, and we're proud to keep backing Fieldwork as it scales.”

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