Spotta Smart Pest Systems said that after a strong first year of commercial operations, it is geared up for accelerated product development and market reach in 2021.
To support its growth into new territories and pests, the company has doubled its headcount and secured partnerships to further extend its commercial reach.
In July 2020, the business secured $1.18 million (£870,000) and Spotta said its ambition is to revolutionise the pest control market, providing monitoring technology to help prevent wide-reaching infestations.
Designed for hospitality, the Bed Pod monitoring system has been used by pest controllers in the UK, Europe and North America. Spotta said Bed Pod is also set to be installed in its first community housing association in 2021.
In late 2020, Spotta announced its development of the Forest Pod, which is currently in trials with Forestry and Land Scotland monitoring Pine Weevils. The company aims to deliver the Forest Pod to market later in 2021.
Spotta’s technology is also being applied to Red Palm Weevils, with initial trials set to take place in Q1 2021 and further trials in the Middle East later in the year, where the pests cause extensive damage to coconut and date farm crops.
To support the growth in partnerships and systems, as well as allow the business to further develop, the Spotta team expanded in the start of 2021.
Two new engineering recruits – Hanting Qin (R&D engineer) and Jordan Docker (firmware engineer) – along with Ekansh Mittal (commercial lead) and Helen Snook (office manager) have joined the team.
Robert Fryers, chief executive and co-founder of Spotta, said: “It’s been a busy 12 months and our ability to grow rapidly, despite the challenges our initial target market of hospitality faced from the pandemic, reflects both the huge opportunity for our technology and the fantastic contributions from our team.
“The year ahead looks even more promising with the launch of Forest Pod later this year, and trials due to start on our product targeting Palm Weevils. Insect pests cost £320bn despite the use of four million tonnes of pesticide to treat each year: our monitoring systems can help reduce the cost and environmental impact of pesticides by detecting pests early.”