Technology
as Resilience.
Reservoir VC invests at the pre-seed and seed stage in rugged AI and ag robotics. We take concentrated positions
in companies whose tech starts with one high-value task in ag 
and compounds to adjacent industries.
Built for the hardest-to-fill and hardest-to-automate jobs.
Operates without connectivity
02
Disruption is normal operation
03
Modular and transferable
Rugged AI originates in
agriculture — and the transfer
of capabilities
Rugged autonomy — field operations
The object
Perception & manipulation — precision interaction
How you engage an individual object: see one irregular, deformable thing in outdoor light and clutter — then pick,
cut, or dose it without damage.
Proven in ag
apple harvest, vine pruning, plant-level targeted spray
The target
Treatment modality — chemical replacement
What you do to the target: light, heat, electricity as the mode of action. Efficacy is target-specific, not crop-
specific.
Proven in ag
UV-C pest control, steam soil treatment, electric & laser
weeding
Why agriculture first
Agriculture builds the grit that
rugged AI requires.
Agriculture isn't the easy market, but rather the proving ground. The hardest problems live here, and what survives the field doesn't stay in the field.
01
Generational scale
$1.5T under pressure. The conditions that create category leaders.
02
The hardest problems live here
Unstructured terrain. Biological variability. Real-world autonomy.
03
Built to transfer
Built for row crops. The same AI stack powers mining, forestry, and energy.
Case in point
Chemical replacement
Solved here
Agriculture
Precision & non-chemical
weeding
Transfers to
Utilities & rail
Right-of-way vegetation
management
Transfers to
Forestry
Wildfire fuel-load reduction
Transfers to
Land mgmt
Selective, chemical-free
treatment
Why now
The rugged AI stack just matured.
Startups used to build everything custom. Now the infrastructure exists — SLAM, edge compute, simulation — so founders compete on application, not plumbing. This is the window.
70%+
of farmland has no reliable signal —
now addressable
$12.2B
agricultural robotics market, growing
~25% CAGR
1 yr
of foundational perception work
startups now skip
The window opens
2020
ROS 2 matures, shared tooling
2022
Edge compute becomes cost-viable
2024
Visual SLAM & simulation ship
Now
Visual SLAM & simulation ship
What we back
A focused fund for early-stage
rugged AI and ag robotics.
The fund at a glance
Pre-seed → Series A
Stage we invest
rugged AI & ag robotics
~$750K
Average check
per company
What kind of company
Application-led
Ruggedized robotics
$12.2B
ag robotics market, 2025
Capability-led
The rugged AI stack
$7.3B → $19B
robotic software platforms by 2030
compound opportunity of rugged ai
TRIC Robotics
~40× TAM
TerraBlaster
10-12x TAM
Bonsai Robotics
$6B+ adjacency
RESERVOIR FARMS · VALIDATED BY WESTERN GROWERS
How we help founders
Reservoir Farms – Our own proving ground.
3
Working farms in california
100+
acres of active testing
Top Shop & Crops
02
Embedded Grower Network
03
Industry Access
The team
We are investors, operators, and field experts.
Rare depth across technology, agriculture, and venture.
Danny Bernstein
Managing Partner
Exit to Google ($100M). Former Managing
Director at Google and Partner at Microsoft.
Stanford GSB · UC Davis.
Nicola Kerslake, CFA
General Partner
$240M+ raised in VC, 25%+ IRR on last fund. 2x
exited AgTech founder (Contain Inc., Indoor Ag-
Con). Prior PE at SEI Investments ($160B AUM).
Matt Hoffman, PhD
General Partner
Led AgTech at Driscoll's — the world's largest
berry company. Deep field expertise across
viticulture and specialty crops. PhD, UC Davis.