Objective
"Nanovel is addressing agriculture's labour crisis with AI-powered autonomous citrus harvesting robots, delivering 16-hour daily operation across 9+ month harvest seasons while reducing costs through progressive technology advancement. With the EU agricultural workforce declining 30% since 2003, farm wages rising 16% annually (vs 5% non-farm), and manual harvesting representing 50% of citrus production costs, orange & lemon growers struggle with escalating expenses and workforce unreliability.
Our robots exploit breakthrough ""Grip & Trim"" technology, delivering precision stem cuts without fruit damage. Unlike traditional automation limited to juice production, our AI-vision systems navigate dense citrus canopies to selectively harvest fresh-market quality fruit with 90-95% removal efficiency. Gen-1 reduces costs from €37.20 to €25.10 per bin, while Gen-2 achieves 1.68 bins/hr productivity (33% improvement over Gen-1's 1.26 bins/hr) for superior customer economics. Our TRL 6 validation includes Spanish deployment with upcoming pilot partnerships confirmed with Bollo Natural Fruit (Spain), Mehadrin (Israel), and O.P. Coppi (Italy).
EIC funding is crucial to Nanovel's strategic scaling because it will:
• Advance our technology from TRL 6 to TRL 8 through European field demonstrations in Spain, Israel and Italy, validating Gen-2 autonomous navigation for commercial deployment.
• De-risk technology for strategic partners by demonstrating cost-effective integration, enabling rapid market penetration across Europe's citrus regions.
• Validate Gen-2's enhanced productivity creating superior customer economics and faster payback periods.
• Secure commercial manufacturing partnerships enabling scalable production for market launch.
Nanovel's direct-sales model accelerates market capture by serving large-scale growers (400+ hectares). By 2030, we project deploying 200 Gen-2 robots across target regions, generating €57.9M revenues, the equivalent of 20+ large citrus operations."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture horticulture fruit growing
- social sciences sociology industrial relations automation
- social sciences economics and business business and management employment
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-EIC-ACC - HORIZON EIC Accelerator
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-02
See all projects funded under this callCoordinator
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1924500 RAMOT MENASHE
Israel
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.