"Naware founder Mark Boysen first tried killing weeds with drones and a 200-watt laser. He'd been noodling on ideas for a startup with some friends, and thinking about how his family in North Dakota had lost three members to cancer, something they suspected may be related to chemicals in the groundwater. Finding a chemical-free way to kill weeds seemed like a solid option."
"The solution he settled on - which he showed off earlier this year at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 - is steam. Boysen's company has developed a system that uses computer vision to spot weeds in lawns and fields and golf courses, and kill them with nothing but vaporized water. It can be attached to mowers, or tractors, or even ATVs. At the moment, Naware is flexible, and Boysen is visibly eager for his idea to spread fast - much like the weeds he's trying to kill."
Mark Boysen founded Naware motivated by family cancer concerns and a desire for chemical-free weed control. Early experiments with drones, a 200-watt laser, and cryogenics proved impractical, with lasers posing fire risk. The chosen solution uses vaporized water delivered as steam combined with computer vision to identify weeds in real time. The system mounts to mowers, tractors, or ATVs and targets weeds on lawns, fields, and golf courses. Early prototyping used consumer garment steamers that required industrial development for repeatable scaling. The image-recognition challenge focused on distinguishing green weeds against green backgrounds using Nvidia GPUs.
Read at TechCrunch
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