Spotta, a specialist in pest control technology, has raised $1.18 million in seed funding.
Investment in the Cambridge, U.K.-based company came from Cambridge Angels and REMUS. Marlet Capital, Wren Capital and the Angel CoFund were also involved in the round.
Spotta offers its pest control services across a number of verticals including farming, forestry and hospitality.
It’s Bed Pod product monitors bed bugs in hotels and other multi-room accommodation.
Spotta plans to divert the funding to recruitment, launch two additional products and expanding beyond its current business in the U.K., U.S. and Europe.
The company says it utilizes artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things in its technology.
The Bed Pod product, for example, uses image processing to identify bugs and discern whether they are bed bugs, before sending an alert to a hotel's housekeeping department.
Machine learning is used to identify bed bugs through their life cycle.
Robert Fryers, CEO of Spotta, says: “For decades, pest management has been held back by laborious, error-prone manual monitoring. With our technology it is finally possible to change this and help industries around the world to make a step change from reactive to proactive management of pests. This will save billions and massively reduce the amount of pesticide used globally."
Paul Anson, lead investor from Cambridge Angels, adds: “Throughout its initial market roll-out with the Bed Pod, Spotta has proven that its pest detection and identification technology has real-world capabilities and delivers customer value in a global marketplace.
This was a very strong follow-on round and that speaks to the capability of the management team and their execution success.”
Representatives from both Cambridge Angels and REMUS are joining the Spotta board.