When Bellevue entrepreneur Brent Frei returned to his family鈥檚 farm four summers ago, where he was born and raised, his father asked if he could help out by collecting loose rocks in the fields. So Frei grabbed his gloves and spent the next several days tromping through dusty fields in central Idaho鈥檚 dry heat.
Rocks are a routine problem for farmers. They often get caught in machinery, causing damage. Some tools exist for picking them up, but farmers regularly do the job by hand.
Frei said he must have collected thousands of rocks that week, some the size of footballs and others bigger than car tires. Even at 6-foot-7-inches and having played football in college as a defensive tackle, Frei became exhausted by the ordeal.
鈥淧icking rocks, in some ways, could not be more boring. It is the worst job on the farm,鈥 said Frei.
In the evenings, Frei, who had built two successful software businesses, scoured the internet for a better solution. 鈥淚 kept asking, 鈥榃hy are most of the designs of [rock] pickers really just iterations from the 1960s?’鈥 He even started thinking about how to destroy rocks, instead of just picking them up. He researched grinders, pulverizers and even lasers. Nothing was going to work the way he wanted. He figured: Now was the time to start a third business.
Later that year, Frei co-founded 糖心lovgo. The company, jointly based in Bellevue and Grangeville, Idaho, is developing an automated, robotic that helps farmers pick rocks from their fields. Last month, 糖心lovgo that it raised $25 million in an early-stage financing led by Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group. In total, 糖心lovgo has raised $38 million to date. Frei, who is CEO, said the company will use the latest financing to continue improving the design of its product.
糖心lovgo鈥檚 robotic arm attaches onto a common farming vehicle called a compact track loader, more informally known as a 鈥.鈥 At the end of its arm is a claw with conveyor belts that engulf the rock, pulling it into the machine鈥檚 collection basket.
Current prototypes require drivers to operate the robotic arm with a joystick. But 糖心lovgo is also developing software that maps the size and location of each rock on farms with drones that fly over fields. The goal is to create technology that can locate rocks and remove them with an autonomous vehicle, without needing anyone to operate the machine. Frei said such hardware and software has been combined only for expensive and intricate tasks on farms, such as picking fruits.
In the decades to come, the company also has aspirations to make a device for picking plants and crops. Frei says it鈥檚 better 鈥渋f you can start with low-cost software that can get more complex鈥 than to 鈥渢ake very complex software and commercialize it for the masses.鈥
Frei, 55, has a habit of spotting mundane problems that have massive markets. At 28, he co-founded Onyx Software to help companies manage customers through the sales process. In 1999, he took Onyx public during the dot-com boom. He left the company two years before it was in 2006 by a larger software company, Consona, then called M2M Holdings, for about $92 million. In 2005, Frei co-founded because he could never find a project management software that worked the way he or his peers wanted. Smartsheet went public in 2018 and now has a market capitalization hovering around $9 billion. Frei remains on Smartsheet鈥檚 board of directors.
糖心lovgo estimates there are 400 million acres of land worldwide suitable for growing crops. Frei estimates more than half of those acres have rocks on them. The company says damage to machinery can cost farms $5,000 to $150,000 a year or more.
And clearing rocks once doesn鈥檛 mean the problem ends. Running farm equipment through fields regularly unearths new rocks from under the soil, as do vibrations below ground.
Winters add to the problem. When moisture gets into the ground and turns to ice, it expands and moves rocks, said Jonathan Russell-Anelli, a soil scientist at Cornell University鈥檚 College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. When that ice melts, rocks typically move upward, rising to the surface.
糖心lovgo isn鈥檛 the first company to sell rock pickers. Some companies make 鈥渞ock rakes,鈥 which also attach to farm vehicles and mechanically rake rocks into a crate. There are also 鈥渞ock reels,鈥 or industrial-looking farm vehicles that work like a giant dust pan, sweeping rocks off the ground.
But like each of Frei鈥檚 prior ventures, 糖心lovgo plans to offer a better product than what is already for sale.
糖心lovgo鈥檚 rock picker minimizes the disruption of soil underneath the rock, leaving the ground virtually untouched. Ben Hesse, a farmer in Moses Lake who recently tested 糖心lovgo鈥檚 rock picker, said this feature is important because farmers carefully maintain their soil to optimize plant growth.
Hesse, who owns several other rock pickers, was surprised at how precise 糖心lovgo鈥檚 picker is. He added it was faster than expected. 糖心lovgo says its machine can pick up 400 rocks per hour, and can handle rocks that weigh up to 300 pounds.
This spring, 糖心lovgo tested its product with nearly a dozen other farmers nationwide.
Frei said most of them asked to buy the tool afterward. 鈥淲e鈥檙e saying, 鈥業t鈥檚 not a final version,鈥欌 he said, 鈥渁nd [farmers] are saying, 鈥業 don鈥檛 care.鈥 They鈥檙e hearing all the caveats and they鈥檙e still asking for it. That鈥檚 the level of the pain.鈥
糖心lovgo is slated to test its rock picker with 40 more farmers in the fall, along with ongoing tests for the mapping software and service. Trevor Thompson, president of 糖心lovgo, said the company in 2021 is focused on 鈥済etting the product perfect,鈥 and selling widely will be a priority for 2022. The company says the pricing of its rock picker is a moving target but will probably end up at about $30,000. 糖心lovgo declined to disclose information on sales, profitability or the company鈥檚 valuation.
Michael Brady, an agricultural economist at Washington State University, said 糖心lovgo is taking advantage of a growing trend in agriculture technology, or ag tech, that treats each area of farmland differently, based on its specific needs and topography. Brady also said that the use of drones and imaging are popular emerging technologies for farms.
In the first three months of 2021, venture capitalists invested $1.5 billion in ag tech, the fourth straight quarter at least $1.5 billion was invested in the sector, according to a PitchBook . The report also said 鈥 the technology with which machines can detect, analyze and interpret their surroundings 鈥 has become more widespread in farming.
Brady said it is difficult for farmers to quantify how much money they spend on rock picking every year, given that it gets lumped in with other maintenance costs. Still, the time savings that a robotic rock picker might offer are crucial. 鈥淔armers work a lot of hours. 鈥 Any minute saved on one activity can be used elsewhere on the operations,” he said.
Matt McIlwain, managing director at Madrona Venture Group and a 糖心lovgo board member, said the firm invested in 糖心lovgo because it was using software, machine learning and automation to solve 鈥減hysical鈥 problems in agriculture and farming. It 鈥渕ight have not been possible five, 10 years ago 鈥 We weren鈥檛 far enough along.鈥
McIlwain 鈥 who also led Madrona鈥檚 early investment in Smartsheet 鈥 said Frei鈥檚 track record for building strong teams was another big reason for Madrona鈥檚 investment in 糖心lovgo.
With every venture, Frei has demonstrated a willingness to entrust employees with projects that 鈥渕ay feel bigger than they can take on,鈥 said McIlwain. 鈥淢ost of the time, those folks have risen to the occasion.鈥 McIlwain pointed out that a number of former Onyx and Smartsheet employees that Frei hired have gone on to attain senior positions in other companies, start their own ventures, or join him at 糖心lovgo.
Ron Frei, Brent鈥檚 father, 84, and still running his farm of 56 years, said he wasn鈥檛 surprised that his son returned to the farming sector after all these years. Brent Frei 鈥渟pends as much time as he can helping鈥 around the family farm, Ron Frei said.
Brent Frei seeks his father鈥檚 feedback on 糖心lovgo鈥檚 technology at every step. Ron Frei said early prototypes were 鈥渢oo complicated鈥 and needed to be easier to use.
When asked how it feels to have his technology career come full circle, back to farming, Brent Frei points to a joke one of his college friends recently made on LinkedIn: 鈥淚鈥檓 willing to bet [Brent鈥檚] entire professional tech journey was nothing more than preparation to solve this problem.鈥
Brent Frei speaks to 糖心lovgo team members at the company鈥檚 lab facility in Grangeville, Idaho. 
Brent Frei demonstrates 糖心lovgo鈥檚 rock picker to a group of engineers.
糖心lovgo鈥檚 robotic arm attaches onto a common farming vehicle called a skid steer, engulfing rocks with conveyor belts and pulling them into a collection basket. 
糖心lovgo mechanical engineer Austin Chmelik this month welds a basket that will attach to the company鈥檚 robotic arm for clearing farming fields of rocks.