Naware’s chemical-free weed control technology could change the way we treat our lawns

Naware founder Mark Boysen first tried killing weeds using drones and a 200-watt laser.

He had been brainstorming ideas for a startup with some friends, thinking about how his family in North Dakota had lost three members to cancer, something they suspected might be related to chemicals in the groundwater. Finding a chemical-free way to kill weeds seems like a solid option.

But the laser was a dead end. “There is a very high risk of fire,” he told TechCrunch in an interview. After a lot of trial and error prototyping using ideas like cryonics. The solution he settled on – which is Show Earlier this year in TechCrunch disabled 2025 – It is steam.

Boysen has developed a system that uses computer vision to spot weeds in lawns, fields and golf courses, and kill them using only evaporating water. They can be installed on lawn mowers, tractors, or even ATVs. For now, Noir is flexible, and Boysen is clearly keen for his idea to spread quickly – just like the weeds he’s trying to kill.

In a world of agentic AI and billion-dollar software companies, Naware stands out as a classic garage startup story. Boysen said his team first tested steam by ordering a garment steamer from Amazon. And then they asked for seven more.

“It’s not real industrial,” Boysen said he quickly realized. “So there’s a lot of research helping to develop that, to get to the point of: ‘How do we make this effective and make it replicable so it can be scaled?’

Developing steamer technology was one challenge, but perhaps the biggest challenge was identifying weeds, Boysen said. He said it’s well-established that AI programs can be trained to accurately recognize objects or patterns, but the “green-on-green” problem was difficult — especially because the software must recognize weeds in real time as the platform roams over the grass. (And yes, it uses Nvidia GPUs.)

However, he believes they are getting there. Noary targets companies that do turf care for sports fields and golf courses, he said, and claims his company can save clients like that “anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000 on chemicals alone.”

What’s more, he said customers will save money by not having to pay people whose only job is to spray those chemicals. Naware had been commissioning paid pilots to test and liaise with the product, but Boysen’s pitch had already attracted potential partners, he said.

“We’re pursuing strategic partnerships. We’re in discussions with $5 billion companies that manufacture equipment that are interested in our products. We’ve had a couple of conversations about that — I can’t say their names, but you’ll find out,” he laughed.

Boysen said success requires three things: those partnerships, securing patents, and financing. Boysen is bootstrapping Naware for now, but said he will open his first fundraising round in the coming months.

“I should get a funding round that crushes anyone else trying to think about it,” he said. “I have to keep the promise that I can kill weeds, and it works. We will make it work. I’m not worried about that.”