Led · Equity · Nov 2024

Swap Robotics builds a 100% electric, autonomous robotics platform for utility-scale solar sites, with both hardware and software designed and built in-house. Its robots perform vegetation management, EPC panel-laying tasks, and materials movement across large solar sites. The company reports having cut vegetation on thousands of acres and deployed dozens of robots across North American solar sites. Founded in 2019 and based in Kitchener, Ontario, Swap aims to be the clear world leader in utility-scale solar robotics within ten years. Swap highlights night-and-day operation capability, quieter battery-powered machines, and purpose-built rough-cut and offsettable cutting decks. The company’s platform targets one of the largest O&M and EPC cost lines—vegetation management and panel installation—while pursuing broader expansion across the North American solar sector. Swap Robotics develops and builds in-house a 100% electric robotics platform and accompanying software for utility-scale solar construction, operations and maintenance. Its robots are used in O&M to manage vegetation and during the EPC phase to reduce labor expense associated with laying solar panels. The company designs and manufactures both hardware and software internally. Management, led by CEO Tim Lichti, is integrating its technology with Array Technologies to pursue efficiency gains. That integration is expected to improve project cycle time and deliver field installation savings. Swap is in the process of closing a Pre–Series A funding round targeting strategic investors, including Array. Swap Robotics produces modular robotic mowers with quick‑swappable batteries and attachments (including snowplow modules) focused on cutting vegetation at utility‑scale solar farms. The company targets solar as a beachhead market, citing vegetation cutting as a major ongoing expense for asset owners. It offers a subscription robots‑as‑a‑service (RaaS) pricing model that varies by frequency and terrain and has already secured $9 million in contracts over the next three years. Swap has begun deployments at select farms in the southern U.S., plans broader U.S. expansion in 2023, and expects to begin international expansion the following year. The team is roughly 40 people, and founder/CEO Tim Lichti says macro tailwinds for climate tech (including the IRA) have helped fundraising and business traction.