Deep Forestry

Cover Block

PUBLIC

Item	Detail
Company Name	Deep Forestry AB
Tagline	Automating forest and tree-based agriculture inventory using autonomous drones, 3D AI, and computer vision.
Headquarters	Uppsala, Sweden
Founded	2018
Stage	Seed
Business Model	Hardware + Software
Industry	Agtech
Technology	Robotics
Geography	Western Europe
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Co-Founders (3+)
Funding Label	Seed
Total Disclosed	€3M

Links

PUBLIC

• Website: https://www.deepforestry.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deep-forestry/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deepforestry

Executive Summary

PUBLIC Deep Forestry AB is a Swedish deep-tech company that has engineered an autonomous drone system to map forests from below the canopy, a technical approach that could enable precision inventory and carbon monitoring for a historically opaque asset class [ESA Commercialisation Gateway]. Founded in 2018 by a trio of founders, the company has developed what it calls a push-button platform that fuses LiDAR and hyperspectral data to generate 3D point clouds and single-tree analytics, aiming to serve large forestry companies [Ouster]. The founding team combines operational and technical roles, with Levi Farrand as CEO, William Johnsson as COO, and Erik Osterberg as CTO. The company recently secured a €3 million Seed round led by Fairpoint Capital in May 2026, providing capital to scale its hardware-software solution [Author note, May 2026]. Over the next 12-18 months, the key watchpoints are the translation of pilot projects with technology partners like Ouster and Avular into named, recurring commercial contracts, and the demonstration of unit economics for a capital-intensive hardware-as-a-service model in a sector known for long sales cycles.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Value
Stage	Seed
Business Model	Hardware + Software
Industry / Vertical	Agtech
Technology Type	Robotics
Geography	Western Europe
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Co-Founders (3+)
Funding	Seed (total disclosed €3,000,000)

PUBLIC

Deep Forestry AB, a Swedish deep-tech company founded in 2018 and headquartered in Uppsala, began with a specific hardware challenge: building a drone agile enough to navigate the dense, cluttered environment beneath a forest canopy [Prospeo]. The founding team, comprising CEO Levi Farrand, COO William Johnsson, and CTO Erik Osterberg, focused on creating an autonomous system that could fly "in-between the trees" to capture the detailed, individual-tree data that traditional above-canopy surveys miss [Prospeo, USDA National Agricultural Library]. This focus on sub-canopy flight became the company's core technical wedge.

The company's development path has been marked by strategic partnerships with component suppliers and institutional validation. By 2022, Deep Forestry had partnered with lidar manufacturer Ouster to integrate sensors into its push-button survey drone, a collaboration documented in a public case study [Ouster]. The company also engaged with the European Space Agency's commercialisation program, listing itself as a startup providing a "turn-key orbital platform" for building 3D forest point clouds [ESA Commercialisation Gateway]. A key operational milestone, reported in 2026, was the commencement of service for Sweden's largest forest companies, including SCA, Stora Enso, and Sveaskog, to meet demand for precise individual-tree data.

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, Prospeo, and multiple partner publications.

Product and Technology

MIXED

Deep Forestry's core product is an autonomous drone system designed to operate where traditional aerial surveys cannot: beneath the forest canopy. The company's primary technical claim is that it has built the first agile, lightweight drone capable of navigating the dense, cluttered environment between trees to capture granular, single-tree data [USDA National Agricultural Library]. This below-canopy capability is central to its value proposition, moving beyond top-down imagery to create detailed three-dimensional models of forest interiors.

The system is presented as a turn-key solution. A drone, powered by Ouster lidar sensors, is deployed to autonomously survey an area, building large 3D point clouds of entire forests [ESA Commercialisation Gateway] [Ouster]. The company states the drones do more than just capture data; they also perform onboard analysis and computation of what is being mapped [Ouster]. This integrated processing suggests the output is not raw sensor data but structured insights, such as individual tree inventories, biodiversity metrics, and carbon stock calculations, aimed at optimizing harvesting routes and supporting sustainable forest management [USDA National Agricultural Library].

Public materials indicate the technology stack extends beyond forestry. The same push-button autonomous survey drone is also marketed for mapping dense industrial environments like warehouses and underground tunnels [Ouster]. Key technology partners include Ouster for lidar sensors and Avular, a provider of modular robotics platforms, which lists Deep Forestry as a case study partner [Avular]. The company's association with the European Space Agency's Commercialisation Gateway further signals its positioning within the advanced robotics and geospatial analytics ecosystem [ESA Commercialisation Gateway].

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Product claims and technical partnerships are corroborated by multiple independent sources including Ouster, Avular, ESA, and the USDA.

Market Research

MIXED

Forest management is shifting from a resource extraction model to a precision asset management one, driven by the need to quantify carbon and biodiversity. The data required for this transition, historically gathered through manual, ground-based surveys, is now a primary bottleneck for both commercial forestry and emerging environmental markets.

The total addressable market is anchored in the global forestry and logging sector, which was valued at $1.4 trillion in 2022 and is projected to grow to $1.9 trillion by 2032, representing a compound annual growth rate of 3.2% [Allied Market Research, 2023]. This figure captures the raw economic activity of timber production. The more relevant serviceable market for precision inventory and monitoring is a segment of this broader industry. While a specific SAM for drone-based forest analytics is not publicly quantified, the adjacent market for precision agriculture technologies, which includes sensing and data analytics for crop management, reached $9.5 billion in 2022 and is forecast to grow to $22.1 billion by 2030 [Grand View Research, 2023]. This analogous market demonstrates the economic willingness to pay for data-driven decision support in land-based industries.

Demand for Deep Forestry's specific solution is propelled by several converging tailwinds. The compliance and voluntary carbon credit markets, which rely on accurate measurement of forest carbon stocks, are a primary driver. The global carbon credit market was valued at $2 billion in 2023 and is projected to expand significantly [BloombergNEF, 2024]. Concurrently, regulatory frameworks like the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) are mandating traceable, verifiable data on supply chain origins and environmental impact, creating a compliance-driven need for granular forest inventory [European Commission, 2023]. Finally, the forestry industry itself faces pressure to optimize yields and reduce waste amid volatile timber prices and increasing operational costs, making efficiency gains from precision data economically compelling.

Key adjacent and substitute markets influence the competitive landscape. The broader geospatial analytics sector, including satellite imagery providers like Planet Labs and Airbus, offers above-canopy monitoring but lacks the sub-canopy granularity. Traditional forestry consulting and manual inventory services represent the incumbent, labor-intensive substitute. The market for autonomous drones in industrial inspection, estimated at $8.8 billion in 2023 [MarketsandMarkets, 2024], is a parallel proving ground for the core robotics and autonomy technology that Deep Forestry adapts for a uniquely challenging environment.

Global Forestry & Logging (2022) | 1400 | $B
Precision Agriculture Tech (2022) | 9.5 | $B
Autonomous Industrial Drones (2023) | 8.8 | $B

The sizing data illustrates the substantial economic base of the core forestry industry, while the precision agriculture and industrial drone figures highlight the validated market appetite for automated, data-centric solutions in adjacent fields. The gap between the trillion-dollar forestry TAM and the single-digit billion precision tech markets suggests a significant serviceable opportunity for technology penetration that is only beginning to be addressed.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market sizing figures are drawn from third-party analyst reports (Allied Market Research, Grand View Research), but specific segmentation for the sub-canopy drone inventory niche is not publicly available. Demand drivers are corroborated by regulatory publications and financial reports on carbon markets.

Competitive Landscape

MIXED

Deep Forestry's competitive position is defined by its specific hardware-software integration for under-canopy data capture, a niche that isolates it from broader aerial mapping providers but also limits its total addressable market.

Company	Positioning	Stage / Funding	Notable Differentiator	Source
Deep Forestry	End-to-end autonomous drone system for under-canopy forestry inventory.	Seed; €3M (May 2026)	Proprietary drone for below-canopy flight; integrated LiDAR/hyperspectral sensor fusion.	[Ouster], [ESA Commercialisation Gateway]

The competitive map for forest intelligence is segmented by data capture method. Incumbent forestry consultancies and large equipment manufacturers (e.g., John Deere through its Blue River acquisition) offer ground-based and broad-acre solutions, but they typically lack the granular, tree-level 3D data from inside the forest stand. Aerial survey and satellite imagery companies like Planet and Airbus provide macro-scale monitoring but cannot penetrate dense canopies. Adjacent substitutes include manual ground surveys, which are labor-intensive and slow, and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) systems, which offer high precision but lack the mobility and automation of an aerial platform.

Deep Forestry's defensible edge today is its integrated hardware stack, specifically the drone engineered for agile, autonomous navigation in dense, GPS-denied environments below the canopy [USDA National Agricultural Library]. This is a perishable technical edge, however. It depends on continuous advancement in simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms and sensor miniaturization. Partnerships with component suppliers like Ouster for LiDAR and Avular for robotics platforms provide validation but not exclusivity [Ouster], [Avular]. The company's early association with the ESA BIC Sweden program suggests access to specialized technical resources and credibility within the European deep-tech ecosystem, which can be a durable advantage for talent recruitment and pilot projects [ESA Commercialisation Gateway].

The company is most exposed in two areas. First, its model appears reliant on selling or servicing expensive hardware systems, which faces longer sales cycles and higher customer acquisition costs than a pure software platform. Second, while it has a technical lead in under-canopy flight, it has not publicly demonstrated commercial scale or named major enterprise customers beyond general references to "Sweden's largest forest companies". A competitor with deeper capital reserves could develop or acquire similar drone capabilities and use an existing distribution channel into forestry, potentially leapfrogging Deep Forestry's first-mover advantage.

The most plausible 18-month competitive scenario hinges on commercialization speed. If Deep Forestry can convert its recent seed funding into deployed systems and published case studies with named forestry giants like SCA or Stora Enso, it becomes the de facto standard for precision under-canopy inventory, making it an attractive acquisition target for a larger agricultural technology or surveying firm. The winner in this scenario is a company that successfully transitions from a technology demonstrator to a commercial operator with recurring revenue. The loser is a company that remains in the pilot phase, allowing software-focused competitors like Tracy of Sweden to build analytics partnerships with cheaper, above-canopy data providers, ultimately eroding the perceived necessity for the more complex (and costly) under-canopy solution.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Positioning is confirmed by multiple partner case studies; competitor intelligence is limited to one named entity with sparse public details.

Opportunity

PUBLIC

If Deep Forestry can successfully automate the inventory of the world's commercial forests, it stands to capture a significant share of a multi-billion dollar market for precision forestry data, a prize that grows as carbon and biodiversity credits become standardized financial instruments.

The headline opportunity for Deep Forestry is to become the default operating system for sustainable commercial forestry, a category-defining platform that provides the foundational single-tree dataset upon which all other forest management, carbon accounting, and biodiversity monitoring decisions are made. This outcome is reachable because the company has already built what it calls the world's only fully autonomous drone system capable of flying below the canopy to generate end-to-end, precision single-tree inventories [Deep Forestry, Ouster]. The technology is not merely a mapping tool but an integrated analytics platform that, according to partner Ouster, analyzes and computes what is being mapped in real time [Ouster]. This positions Deep Forestry to move beyond a data service and into the realm of decision-support infrastructure, a wedge into a sector historically reliant on manual, ground-based surveys.

Growth from a Swedish deep-tech startup to a global forestry intelligence platform could follow several concrete paths. The most plausible scenarios hinge on leveraging early traction with large, referenceable customers to unlock adjacent markets or new revenue streams.

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
Become the Carbon Credit Verifier	The company's precise, tree-by-tree inventory becomes the de facto standard for measuring and verifying forest carbon stocks, embedding its data layer into voluntary and compliance carbon markets.	A partnership with a major carbon registry or a regulatory body accepting its methodology.	Deep Forestry's mission explicitly includes enabling carbon flux understanding [Deep Forestry], and its technology is already cited for carbon credit monitoring applications [Ouster].
Land-and-Expand in Industrial Forestry	Starting with its reported engagements with Sweden's largest forest companies (SCA, Stora Enso, Sveaskog), the system becomes the inventory backbone for these giants, then expands geographically through their international operations.	A multi-year, enterprise-wide contract with one of these anchor customers.	The company is already serving these entities to meet demand for precise individual-tree data, demonstrating product-market fit within the core customer segment.
Pivot to Defense & Strategic Autonomy	The autonomous navigation and 3D mapping capabilities developed for cluttered forest environments are repurposed for defense applications like reconnaissance in denied terrain.	A grant or contract from a European defense agency under initiatives for strategic autonomy.	The technology is described as suitable for industrial buildings, warehouses, and tunnels [Ouster], and has been profiled in a defense finance context [Defence Finance Monitor].

Compounding for Deep Forestry would manifest as a data and distribution flywheel. Each forest surveyed adds to a proprietary, three-dimensional map of global tree assets. This dataset, unique in its granularity and captured below the canopy, could improve the company's AI algorithms for species classification, health assessment, and volume prediction, creating a data moat. Furthermore, adoption by large forestry operators provides a distribution channel; once the inventory system is integrated into a company's planning workflow, switching costs become high, and expansion into that customer's other geographies becomes a natural next step. Early evidence of this flywheel starting is the company's engagement with technology partners like Ouster and Avular [Ouster, Avular], which validates the core hardware stack and could lead to bundled offerings or co-selling relationships.

The size of the win, should the "Carbon Credit Verifier" scenario play out, is substantial. The global market for voluntary carbon credits alone was valued at approximately $2 billion in 2023 [BloombergNEF, 2024], with forestry and land use projects representing a major segment. If Deep Forestry's technology became a preferred measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) tool capturing even a single-digit percentage of the value flow in this market, it would represent a billion-dollar opportunity (scenario, not a forecast). As a comparable, the strategic value of foundational geospatial data is reflected in the multi-billion dollar valuations of companies like Planet Labs, which provides satellite imagery. Deep Forestry's below-canopy data layer offers a complementary and, for many forestry applications, superior perspective, suggesting a similar path to creating a high-margin, scalable data business.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Growth scenarios are extrapolated from cited product claims and partner case studies; specific customer contract values and carbon market capture rates are not publicly available.

Sources

PUBLIC

1. [ESA Commercialisation Gateway] Deep Forestry AB | https://commercialisation.esa.int/startups/deep-forestry-ab/

2. [Ouster] Deep Forestry: Autonomous Survey Drones Powered by Ouster Lidar | https://ouster.com/insights/case-studies/deep-forestry

3. [Crunchbase, May 2026] Deep Forestry - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/deep-forestry

4. [Prospeo] Deep Forestry Company Profile | https://www.prospeo.com/company/deep-forestry-ab

5. [USDA National Agricultural Library] revolutionising forestry mapping and analysis with artificial intelligence | https://www.nal.usda.gov/research-tools/food-safety-research-projects/deep-forestry-drones-revolutionising-forestry-mapping

6. [Avular] Deep Forestry - Avular | https://www.avular.com/case-studies

7. [Allied Market Research, 2023] Forestry and Logging Market | https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/forestry-and-logging-market-A31691

8. [Grand View Research, 2023] Precision Agriculture Market | https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/precision-farming-market

9. [BloombergNEF, 2024] Voluntary Carbon Markets Outlook 2024 | https://about.bnef.com/blog/voluntary-carbon-markets-outlook-2024/

10. [European Commission, 2023] Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive | https://finance.ec.europa.eu/capital-markets-union-and-financial-markets/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/corporate-sustainability-reporting_en

11. [MarketsandMarkets, 2024] Autonomous Drones Market | https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/autonomous-drones-market-102266957.html

12. [Defence Finance Monitor] Deep Forestry: Autonomous AI Drones for Europe’s Security and Strategic Autonomy | https://www.defencefinancemonitor.com/p/deep-forestry-autonomous-ai-drones

13. [Deep Forestry] Deep Forestry Company Introduction | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp_zYjy7Vvs