Kodama, a robotics startup developing AI technology for forestry, has raised $7 million in a funding round co-led by Konvoy Ventures and Breakwater Ventures.
The round also included Blue Forest Asset Management, NYA Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Dangerous Ventures, M1C, and other investors. The latest investment brings Kodama’s total funding to $14 million.
The company will use the new funding to expand its commercial operations, build stronger partnerships with equipment manufacturers, and improve its autonomous technology for working in difficult outdoor environments.
There is a growing lack of skilled machine operators in forestry companies. At the same time, the demand for timber, forest management and wildfire prevention is growing. Without workers, expensive forestry machines can sit idle, draining productivity and increasing operating costs.
“Kodama’s tech stack is not something that can be vibe coded,” said Merritt Jenkins, CEO and co-founder of Kodama. “It has to work in harsh environments with high uptime for crews that depend on it every day. That requires ruggedized hardware, production-grade software, safety systems, and a tight feedback loop with customers in the field.”
Kodama solves this problem by combining AI-powered automation with remote machine operation. Its technology lets machines do routine jobs by themselves, but experienced operators can take remote control for more complicated work. This approach enables forestry companies to operate their equipment more efficiently.
The company’s technology is already being used in commercial logging operations across the southeastern United States. Over the past six months, machines equipped with Kodama’s technology have moved more than 100,000 tons of timber across multiple states.
“Kodama is building more than autonomy software,” said Jackson Vaughan, Managing Partner at Konvoy Ventures. “The company is developing integrated hardware, deepening relationships with customers and equipment manufacturers, and building the real-world dataset required to make intelligent forestry work at scale. That combination is difficult to reproduce and becomes stronger with every machine and customer Kodama brings online.”
As the company expands its deployments, it expects to gather more real-world data from machines, operators, and forestry sites. This information will also help to improve the performance of the system and to enable more autonomous operations over time.
“AI is coming to every major industrial sector, but adoption will be won by companies that solve real operating problems today,” said Will Finney, General Partner at Breakwater Ventures. “Kodama stands out because it is already helping forestry contractors make better use of skilled labor, while improving safety and equipment productivity.”
“The future of heavy equipment will not arrive in a single autonomous leap,” said Jenkins. “Kodama is building the intelligence layer for heavy equipment operating in unstructured environments. We are starting with human-in-the-loop autonomy systems and building toward an intelligent platform that orchestrates entire operations.”
Kodama is also partnering with established manufacturers of forestry equipment. Its technology is compatible with existing machine fleets, so customers can deploy AI-powered capabilities without replacing all of their equipment. The company is growing its business and adding support for more equipment platforms.
