Full-Time
Mechatronics Engineer
Lab & Automation Systems
Updated on 8/13/2026
Ohalo
51-200 employees
Seed-based accelerated crop breeding platform
Compensation Overview
$120k - $150k/yr
No H1B Sponsorship
South San Francisco, CA, USA
In Person
 Mechanical Engineering (1) |
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- At least 5 years of experience in mechanical engineering, mechatronics, robotics, or related fields.
- Hands-on experience with mechanical system assembly and troubleshooting.
- Familiarity with automation components such as motors, actuators, linear motion systems, and sensors.
- Comfort working in experimental environments with evolving requirements.
- Ability to collaborate across disciplines and communicate with technical and non-technical partners.
- Design, assemble, and integrate mechanical and mechatronic subsystems for laboratory and greenhouse automation.
- Support the deployment and tuning of robotic systems, actuators, and motion platforms.
- Integrate and validate force, position, imaging, and environmental sensors into mechanical systems.
- Commission, troubleshoot, and maintain systems in greenhouse and laboratory environments.
- Work with biology, hardware, and software teams to align system designs with scientific workflows.
- Identify failure modes and implement design improvements for reliability and maintainability.
- Create and maintain mechanical drawings, bills of materials, assembly instructions, and test procedures.
- Experience with agricultural systems, greenhouse operations, or laboratory automation.
- Exposure to robotics frameworks, controls, or embedded systems.
- Experience supporting systems in field or production environments.
Ohalo Genetics develops seeds using Boosted Breeding, a method that makes plants pass on their entire genome to offspring, enabling asexual reproduction through seeds. How it works: by altering the reproductive process, the offspring are genetically identical to the parent, producing true seeds that carry the full parent genome. This allows rapid development of new crop varieties with desirable traits, shortening breeding cycles from about 10–12 years to only a few years. What sets it apart: it targets a wide range of crops (potatoes, corn, berries) and collaborates with other agricultural companies to develop and commercialize new varieties, focusing on predictable, genotype-stable outcomes. What the company aims to achieve: increase crop productivity and resilience to changing environmental conditions, helping improve the food supply chain by delivering better-yielding, more reliable crops.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Late Stage VC
Total Funding
$100M
Headquarters
Seacliff, California
Founded
2019
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Ohalo raised about $205 million, funding multi-crop development and trials.
- Florida strawberry resistant varieties enter experimental trials in 2025, widening product optionality.
- Farmers already started planting true potato seeds, signaling early commercial traction.
What critics are saying
- True potato seed still faces farmer adoption risk before 2027 commercial deliveries.
- Ohalo’s claims need field validation; one bad season can crush breeder credibility.
- If Boosted Breeding underdelivers yield or disease resistance, capital access dries up.
What makes Ohalo unique
- Ohalo’s Boosted Breeding targets true-seed crops, collapsing 10-year breeding cycles into years.
- Justin Wolfe joined July 2, 2026, adding Syngenta and Monsanto commercialization discipline.
- Ohalo pairs genetics with commercialization partnerships, including UF/IFAS and Allied Potato.
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Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 1%1 year growth
↓ -2%2 year growth
↑ 0%Ohalo has appointed Justin Wolfe as president and chief operating officer to lead commercialisation of its Boosted seed business. Wolfe joins from Syngenta, where he served as president of global seeds, bringing over 30 years of seed industry experience. Wolfe will oversee commercial scaling of Ohalo's products, initially focusing on delivering the world's first true potato seed to farmers. The company's Boosted Potato hybrids use true seed rather than traditional tubers, offering yield gains exceeding 20% and potentially $2,000 additional profit per acre for commercial farmers. Founded in 2019, Ohalo's Boosted Breeding technology also extends to almonds and strawberries, with additional crop varieties in development. Wolfe previously held senior roles at Monsanto, including vice president of Europe and Middle East commercial operations.
APTOS, Calif., Dec. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ohalo Genetics, Inc. has entered into a groundbreaking Development & Commercialization Agreement with the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Florida Foundation Seed Producers, Inc., and the Florida Strawberry Growers Association (FSGA) to address the significant threat of neopestalotiopsis to the strawberry industry.This fungal disease, which can wipe out entire strawberry fields, has become one of the most damaging issues faced by Florida strawberry growers, affecting crop yields, increasing production costs and threatening the livelihood of farmers in a state known as the "Winter Strawberry Capital of the United States".Neopestalotiopsis was first detected in Florida in 2017, with notable outbreaks in subsequent years. By 2019 and 2020, the disease had become widespread and severely damaged the crop across the state.Currently, there are no commercially available public strawberry varieties resistant to neopestalotiopsis. Growers have relied on fungicides and rigorous field management practices to mitigate the disease's effects, but these methods come with increased costs and limited effectiveness.In response to this challenge, Ohalo® leveraged its advanced breeding technology platform with genetic resources from UF/IFAS to develop a novel trait that makes a strawberry plant resistant to neopestalotiopsis and integrated that trait into existing University of Florida strawberry varieties. These new, resistant varieties will enter non-commercial, experimental trials in 2025."This collaboration showcases the power of public-private partnerships in solving critical agricultural challenges," said Jud Ward, CTO of Ohalo
Dave Friedberg, CEO of Ohalo, has unveiled a 'boosted breeding' technology that ensures offspring inherit all beneficial traits from both parent plants, potentially revolutionizing crop breeding. This method, which prevents the random splitting of genes, has shown to significantly increase yields. Ohalo, founded in 2019, has raised over $100 million in funding. Friedberg was inspired by Dr. Jud Ward's work at Driscoll’s and officially set up Ohalo in late summer 2019.
Vinod Khosla and Dave Friedberg struck a largely positive note on stage at the World Agri-Tech and Future Food-Tech conferences in San Francisco last week despite the ongoing funding winter.While AgFunder reported a 49.2% decline in agrifoodtech funding in 2023 and many startups face the abyss this year without a fresh influx of capital, money is always available for exceptional founders with disruptive products or technologies, insisted Dave Friedberg, CEO at investment group The Production Board (TPB) during a panel debate with Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla last Tuesday.“Exceptional founders have nothing to worry about,” said Friedberg. “But being a founder doesn’t give you the privilege of being able to raise money. And so that’s a fundamental truth that everyone’s going to get hit in the head with at some point. You can’t blame the market.”“That is so true,” agreed Khosla. “There are so many me-too kinds of startups. In fact, what I would argue is what the market has done is separated the really good startups from the not so good… Markets go up and down and you have to roll with the punches.”Vinod Khosla on cultivated meat: ‘We’ve probably looked at two dozen business plans, and not one made economic sense’Khosla, who highlighted his firm’s investments in Nitricity (on-farm nitrogen), Leaft (Rubisco protein), Impossible Foods (plant-based meat), Vertical Oceans (high-tech shrimp farming), Climate Corp (ag data), and Blue River (ag robotics) over the years, said: “I don’t think there are any areas I would say we’ve pulled back from
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