Bristol Startup LettUs Grow Attracts £1M Funding To Develop Sustainable Farms For Future
January 11, 2019
The UK agri-tech startup LettUs Grow has obtained £1 million in funding to build commercial indoor farm facilities. The startup designs aeroponic irrigation and control technology for vertical farms. The funding will steer the company to expand globally and develop innovative eco-friendly farming solutions.
Supported by renowned organisations
Innovate UK has endowed LettUs Grow with £399,650 to manoeuvre a £700,000 project enabling food security in the emergent challenge of climate change.
The agri-tech startup will work in collaboration with ECH Engineering and Grow Bristol. Besides, the company has won several research grants including the Green Challenge, amounting €100,000 in total.
Prior to the latest capital ingestion, LettUs Grow raised £460,000 from ClearlySo, Bethnal Green Ventures, and the University of Bristol Enterprise Fund II, managed by Parkwalk Advisors and angel investors.
Matias Wibowo, investment manager at ClearlySo articulated, “Innovation is critical to ensuring long-term food security and sustainability. Our investors see the value, both in terms of financial and environmental/social returns from tackling this systemic global problem. That’s why they got involved in LettUs Grow. LettUs Grow provides the technological innovation piece to the vertical smart farming movement that is currently trending rapidly in the urban context.”
Challenges of rising populace and climate change
With the exponentially growing population, the food production needs to be augmented by many folds. The traditional farming will not be enough to feed this escalating global population facing the menace of climate change, soil degradation and looming farmland. Besides, a significant proportion of crops get damaged due to logistical anomalies.
LettUs Grow – sustainable farming for a better future
LettUs Grow has invented a patent-pending aeroponic technology for growing shrubs and herbs with over 70% higher growth rate compared to existing methods. In this technology, plant roots are suspended in a nutrient-rich mist instead of using soil. This ensures faster, consistent and predictable yields resulting in 95% reduction in water usage against open-field farming. LettUs Grow enables reduction of carbon footprints with 0% use of pesticides and chemicals.
Headquartered in Bristol, LettUs Grow was founded by Ben Crowther, Charlie Guy and Jack Farmer in 2015.
Charlie Guy, co-founder and Managing Director of LettUs Grow stated, “This injection of private and public funding into the company enables us to accelerate our innovative products to market and build one of the most technically advanced facilities for indoor growing in the world. The global agri-tech industry is very exciting right now, all stemming from the necessity to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of food production. We are fielding enquiries from all around the world from food producers and farmers who want to experience the benefits of our technology across a growing range of crops.”
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