The firm, which is the developer of the first robotic device able to “swim” deep in granular bulks such as cereal grain, is hoping to raise £150,000 in equity to begin small series manufacturing, that will help with the set-up of additional pilots in the UK, EU, and potentially the US by next year.

The firm has launched the campaign after raising more than £600,000 in innovation prizes and grants (including the likes of Converge, Scottish Enterprise and Innovate UK).

The company has freshly grown its team to 12 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) and has recently been listed among the new generation of Scottish start-ups, with sustainability at its core.

Lorenzo Conti, Crover’s founder, said: “We are excited to open our first equity crowdfunding campaign allowing everyone to join our journey reaching below the surface and keeping grain safe. This gives investors the opportunity to be part of one of the most innovative and pioneering developments in grain storage for decades.”

Jon Knight, Crover’s non-executive director and former head of AHDB Crop Protection Unit, added: “Farmers spend a lot of time and effort producing a good quality crop…and then it goes into store. The grain storage part is still a bit of a Cinderella subject and monitoring grain can be very time-consuming. It means making a lot of records, making those records available to different people.

“There is real value in developing better technology, with the ability to move within the grain and that can record condition information, in this particular space. Producing output that’s directly accessible to quality assurance, like Red Tractor.”