Award-winning Dublin-based agritech firm Iamus Technologies has collapsed into liquidation.
It had raised more than €1m from backers including a vehicle controlled by the Carton family, which sold their Manor Farm chicken business to Scandi Standard in Sweden in 2017.
Iamus was founded by its chief executive, Shane Kiernan, in 2018.
The artificial intelligence and robotics company had developed an autonomous robot system called Gallus that when deployed in chicken houses would monitor welfare and environmental conditions in the shed.
The data provided allowed farmers to make decisions that could improve efficiency and sustainability.
Gallus measures variables such as levels of ammonium in the air, light, carbon dioxide and sensors that can also assess a bird’s weight.
In 2020, Iamus won the best overall start-up award winner at the Enterprise Ireland Innovation Arena Awards.
Enterprise Ireland had invested a total of €300,000 in Iamus.
It invested €200,000 in 2020 and a further €100,000 in 2021.
The Carton family’s Themvar vehicle was the single largest investor in the agritech firm.
It invested €700,000 in two separate allotments in 2020, and a further €100,000 in 2021.
Brothers Vincent and Justin Carton sold the Manor Park group to Scandi Standard for €70m in cash and shares in 2017.
Company filings show that a creditors’ meeting of Iamus Technologies, which employed just a handful of staff, was held just over a week ago.
A notice in Iris Oifigúil states: “It has been proved to the satisfaction of this meeting that the company cannot, by reason of its liabilities, continue its business and that it is advisable that the same should be wound up.”
Shane McAleer of Somers, Murphy & Earl Corporate Services was appointed liquidator.
The most recent set of publicly-available accounts for Iamus show that the company had shareholder funds totalling €234,000 at the end of December 2020 as a result of the fundraising that year.
It had made a loss of more than €330,000 in 2020.
Iamus had been working with major global food companies and by 2020 had been hoping to raise an additional $3m to help further develop and commercialise its technology.
In 2021, the firm was named as a finalist for the 2021 Future Food Asia Award, which had a $100,000 first prize. It was among just 10 firms chosen as finalists from around the world, and the only one from Ireland.
“The 2021 Future Food Asia Award finals represents a massive opportunity for Iamus to raise our profile in the key Asia market,” said Mr Kiernan at the time.
“Iamus has already established a significant pipeline of customers in the region, including a trial commencing in Thailand later this year,” he added. “The opportunity to pitch at the Future Food Asia Award finals to an audience that can further expand access to potential customers and investors is a massive opportunity for us to continue to deliver on our mission.”