Voltrac Raises €7M to Build Thor, an Autonomous Electric Tractor Tackling Agriculture’s Labour Crisis

Europe is facing a silent emergency: farms cannot find enough workers. Across fruit orchards, vineyards and grain farms, labour shortages have intensified to the point where production cycles are at risk with many farming families forced to scale back operations or sell land they have worked for generations. Into this critical gap steps Voltrac, a deep-tech robotics startup based in Valencia, Spain, building Thor, an autonomous electric tractor designed to ensure farms stay productive even when human labour isn’t available.

Voltrac has now raised €7 million in seed funding, led by Extantia with participation from FoodLabs, Antler, PUSH and Prototype Capital. With this new capital, the company plans to scale manufacturing to 100 units per year starting in 2026 which is an unusually aggressive target for a hardware startup, but one that reflects both market urgency and investor confidence.

Solving an Agricultural Crisis That Can No Longer Be Ignored!

Across Europe, the US and Asia, agricultural labour shortages have reached a tipping point.  Farmers struggle to find workers for harvesting, field maintenance and material transport. Many ageing farmers lack successors and younger generations often move toward urban career paths. As labour costs rise and availability dwindles, productivity has stalled threatening global food security.

Voltrac’s founders, Thomas Hubregtsen and Francisco Infante Aguirre, understood this problem intimately. Francisco grew up in a family deeply rooted in agriculture. His grandfather built a business selling tractor implements in more than 25 countries and his family farmed the land until labour shortages made operations unsustainable. “When there was nobody left to work the fields, we had to sell that land,” he recalls. “We built Thor so other families wouldn’t have to make that choice.” That personal motivation sits at the heart of Voltrac’s mission: replacing labour scarcity with reliable autonomy, enabling farms to thrive even when workforce gaps widen.

Thor: A Ground-Up, Autonomous Electric Tractor Built for a New Era

While traditional manufacturers like John Deere have made strides toward partial autonomy, Thor represents a fundamentally different vision: a fully autonomous, electric unmanned ground vehicle engineered from scratch rather than retrofitted from an existing tractor. This ground-up design gives Thor several significant advantages. The vehicle uses a distributed electric propulsion system, with individual motors in each wheel, eliminating many mechanical complexities of diesel-based tractors. As a result, Thor contains 70% fewer components than legacy machines, dramatically reducing maintenance demands and simplifying repairs.

Thor’s battery system is another key innovation. The vehicle carries three times the battery capacity of some competitors and uses fully swappable battery packs, allowing farms to run vehicles nearly continuously without long charging pauses. Voltrac estimates that the reduced mechanical load and simplified servicing can cut maintenance costs by around 30% annually.

Built for real-world conditions, Thor is currently being tested across vineyards and mountain regions surrounding Valencia, navigating steep slopes, tight crop rows and rugged terrain. What makes Thor especially valuable is its compatibility with existing farm equipment, from ploughs and seed drills to atomisers and trailers allowing farmers to integrate autonomous operations without purchasing an entire ecosystem of proprietary attachments.

A Single Operator, Multiple Autonomous Units

At the centre of Thor’s value proposition is its ability to be tele-operated with autonomous assistance. A single operator can manage multiple units simultaneously, with the system handling navigation, obstacle avoidance, route optimisation and implement control. This directly addresses the labour gap. Instead of hiring ten workers to manage ten machines, one person can supervise an entire fleet.

Combined with adaptive crop management software currently under development, Thor is positioned as a tractor replacement and as well as a platform capable of making intelligent decisions in the field.

A Generational Leap: Why Investors Are Backing Voltrac ?

Voltrac’s €7 million seed round is one of the more substantial early-stage raises in European agri-robotics this year. For lead investor Extantia, the decision was rooted in Voltrac’s engineering-first approach and realistic path to affordability. “Voltrac has cracked what most hardware startups struggle with: cost,” said Yair Reem, Partner at Extantia. “They’re not asking farmers or defence operators to pay a green premium. They’re already at price parity with diesel platforms and on track to undercut them.”

This price parity is significant. Many autonomous farming solutions remain prohibitively expensive due to proprietary hardware and complex retrofitting. Voltrac’s simpler, modular architecture and focus on manufacturability allows Thor to be competitive with traditional diesel tractors while delivering the operational savings of autonomy and electrification. Other investors include FoodLabs, Antler, PUSH and Prototype Capital, all of whom see Thor as a unique intersection of climate innovation, robotics and industrial-scale automation. Several high-profile angels from the hardware and deep-tech landscape have also backed the company.

Beyond Farming: A Dual-Use Platform for Defense Logistics

One of Thor’s most intriguing capabilities lies outside agriculture. Built to operate autonomously over rugged terrain, the vehicle can haul up to 4 tonnes, making it highly suitable for frontline defense logistics, transporting supplies, medical equipment or materials across unstable and dangerous environments.

In a world where military forces increasingly rely on unmanned systems to protect personnel and maintain supply lines, Thor’s robust design offers a compelling dual-use opportunity. Voltrac’s team has already signalled plans to expand into this domain as demand increases.

Scaling Fast: From Prototype to Production Facility

Voltrac has progressed at unusual speed for a deep-tech hardware company. In just over a year, the team has moved from a blank sheet of paper to a functioning vehicle, rigorous field tests and an operational production facility. With the new funding, manufacturing will scale to 100 units per year starting in 2026, a goal supported by new hiring across hardware, software, sales, testing and operations.

The founders emphasise that this scaling effort is not only about business growth but about addressing systemic challenges affecting farmers worldwide. Their long-term mission is clear, which is to ensure that no family loses their land because there aren’t enough hands available to work it.

What’s Next for Spain-based startup Voltrac ?

Voltrac’s roadmap is ambitious. The company plans to advance Thor’s autonomy level, incorporating reinforcement learning to help the vehicle adapt dynamically to changing crop conditions. This includes optimising treatments, improving yields and making data-driven operational decisions with minimal human oversight.

As the climate grows more unpredictable and labour scarcity continues to intensify, Voltrac aims to provide farmers and frontline operators with technology that reduces risk, improves sustainability and enables resilient food production.

Their message is direct: no one should endure the economic or physical hardships of essential labour when a robot can safely and reliably do it instead.