Farm robotics firm buys massive Santa Clara office building

SANTA CLARA — An agricultural robotics company whose technology could revolutionize farming and food production has purchased a large Santa Clara office building that was previously sublease.

Blue River Technology, a subsidiary of manufacturing and agricultural equipment giant Deere & Co., purchased an office building at 3303 Scott Blvd. Filed in Santa Clara, October. 28 Performed with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.

The robotics company paid $85 million for the Santa Clara office building, according to county records.

Toeniskoetter Development sold the building to Blue River through an affiliate, public filings show. The company Toeniskoetter developed the building in 2015.

Blue River Technologies purchased the building in an all-cash deal. Blue River currently occupies a building in Sunnyvale totaling 55,000 square feet. It is unclear whether the sublease transaction or property purchase will result in Blue River exiting its Sunnyvale office.

In 2011, Stanford University graduate students Jorge Heraud and Lee Redden founded Blue River Technology.

In 2017, Deere & Company acquired Blue River for $305 million. The deal enables Deere & Co. to deploy Blue River’s robotics and artificial intelligence into a variety of equipment and machinery supplied by Deere.

Blue River’s technology enables farmers to use Deere’s ultra-modern equipment to zero out specific weeds for spraying and killing.

This high-tech method is designed to replace the traditional technique of mass spraying weeds in fields.

In March 2022, Deere & Co. launched a product called “See & Spray,” which grafts Blue River’s artificial intelligence and robotics onto Deere agricultural spray equipment.

“See & Spray Ultimate can reduce the use of non-residual herbicides by more than two-thirds by spraying weeds only in corn, soybeans and cotton,” Deere said in a prepared release in March.