People

Caine Thompson

GENERAL MANAGER, US, SAGA ROBOTICS

General Manager of Saga Robotics' US operations, based in Santa Barbara; led the Bonterra Organic Estates UV-C pilot announced in April 2026.

Leads US operations from Santa Barbara; ran the Bonterra Organic Estates pilot in Mendocino.

Tim Bucher

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, AGTONOMY

Co-founder and CEO of Agtonomy, building hybrid autonomy and tele-guidance software ('Physical AI') for specialty-crop equipment. Agtonomy raised an $18M Series B in October 2025 led by DBL Partners.

Sonoma County operations; Silver Oak Cellars Napa pilot of TeleFarmer autonomy.

Praveen Penmetsa

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, MONARCH TRACTOR

Co-founder and CEO of Monarch Tractor; gave a candid post-mortem interview to AgFunderNews in April 2026 on why the company's full-stack model failed.

Led the Livermore company whose MK-V tractors were deployed at Trefethen Family Vineyard and Gamble in Napa.

Devon Wright

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, LUMO

Co-founder and CEO of Lumo, whose Lumo One smart irrigation valves are deployed at 150+ ranches. Lumo raised $7M in May 2024 co-led by Active Impact Investments and Fall Line Capital.

Leads a Napa County-headquartered smart irrigation company deployed at Napa and Sonoma growers.

Adam Koeppel

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, AGROLOGY

Co-founder and CEO of Agrology, a public benefit corporation building an ML predictive platform for irrigation, extreme weather, smoke-taint risk, pest and disease, and soil carbon.

Leads the Sonoma-office agtech company whose sensing platform serves premium Napa and Sonoma wineries.

Pål Johan From

CO-FOUNDER, SAGA ROBOTICS

Co-founder of Saga Robotics (2016), maker of the Thorvald autonomous UV-C powdery-mildew robot; relocated to California to lead US operations. Saga raised $11.2M in August 2025.

Relocated to California to lead US operations of the company treating California vineyards with autonomous UV-C robots.

Kia Behnia

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, SCOUT

Co-founder and CEO of Scout (Agricultural Scout), a UC Davis spinout whose AI processes tractor-mounted camera images for vineyard mapping, vine counting, yield forecasting, and virus ID. Formerly at Splunk; owns the Neotempo wine brand.

Co-founded the UC Davis spinout applying AI vision to tractor-mounted cameras for vineyard mapping and yield forecasting.

Yang Fang

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, BEAGLE TECHNOLOGY

Co-founder and CEO of Beagle Technology, building 'See and Cut': AI vision plus hydraulic cutters that retrofit onto existing tractors for pruning. Beagle won the 2026 AgTech Breakthrough 'Overall Harvesting Innovation of the Year' award.

Leads the Los Gatos company extending its Reservoir Farms membership to Sonoma for vine pruning.

Tyler Niday

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, BONSAI ROBOTICS

Co-founder and CEO of Bonsai Robotics, building a vision-first autonomy stack for farm robots; Bonsai raised a $15M Series A in January 2025 (Bison Ventures) and acquired farm-ng in July 2025.

Leads the San Jose autonomy company piloting its vision-first Amiga platform in California vineyards.

Hayes Drumwright

FOUNDER, TRACE3; NAPA WINERY OWNER

Serial tech entrepreneur who founded Trace3 (Irvine, CA; AI, data, cloud, and cybersecurity consultancy) in 2002; Trace3 was acquired by Apollo funds on November 3, 2025. Co-owns three Napa wineries and has spoken publicly on AI and wine in

Serial tech entrepreneur who co-owns three Napa wineries: Memento Mori (Calistoga), Vida Valiente (St Helena), and Edge Hill (St Helena).

David Duncan

PROPRIETOR, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, SILVER OAK CELLARS

Proprietor, chairman and CEO of Silver Oak Cellars (Napa Valley); personally invested in Agtonomy and partnered with the company on a TeleFarmer autonomy pilot starting in Silver Oak's Napa Valley vineyards.

Napa Valley winery proprietor who personally invested in Agtonomy and piloted TeleFarmer in Napa vineyards.

Mason Earles

CO-FOUNDER AND CTO, SCOUT; PROFESSOR, UC DAVIS

Assistant professor at UC Davis, leading the Plant AI and Biophysics Lab, and co-founder/CTO of Scout, applying AI to crop health, yield prediction, and virus detection. Among the region's most-quoted academics on vineyard AI.

Leads the UC Davis Plant AI and Biophysics Lab; co-founded the vineyard-AI spinout Scout.

Stavros Vougioukas

PROFESSOR, BIOLOGICAL AND AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING, UC DAVIS

Professor in UC Davis Biological and Agricultural Engineering, working on agricultural robotics and mechanization for specialty crops (FRAIL-bots harvest aids, robotic orchard platform); co-led the ~$1M USDA RAPID project on per-plant irrig

Led the RAPID project (Robot-Assisted Precision Irrigation and Diagnostics), tested in Central and Napa Valley vineyards.

Ben Montpetit

PROFESSOR AND CHAIR, VITICULTURE AND ENOLOGY, UC DAVIS

Professor and Chair of the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology; the university's lead contact on the joint Moet Hennessy / Analog Devices / UC Davis AI chemical-signature sensing program announced October 7, 2026.

UC Davis lead on the October 2026 Moet Hennessy / Analog Devices AI sensing collaboration for wine quality.

Ken Goldberg

PROFESSOR, UC BERKELEY; DIRECTOR, AUTOLAB

Professor at UC Berkeley and director of the AUTOLAB robotics lab; co-led the USDA RAPID vineyard-irrigation robotics project; leads AlphaGarden, an automated polyculture testbed reported to match professional horticulturalists with up to 4

Co-led the RAPID project tested in Napa Valley vineyards; Berkeley AUTOLAB's AlphaGarden work on automated polyculture.