LettUs Grow Wins National Shell Enterprise Development Award
The Sustainable Indoor Farming Company Takes
Home A Financial Prize to Help Scale The Company
23RD JULY 2019
LettUs Grow makes cutting edge technology for greenhouses and vertical farms with the mission to create a more sustainable future for the world’s eating habits.
And their efforts to make ethical eating possible aren’t going unnoticed – LettUs Grow’s Co-founder and Managing Director, Charlie Guy, has been crowned national winner of the Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
This award is more than just a title too – the startup has been gifted with £30,000 to help scale the indoor farming company.
The only way is up
Charlie is incredibly humbled and grateful for the recognition. He says, “I am truly honoured to have won amongst such an impressive group of finalists. Making it through the competitive process for the national competition is fantastic validation for the potential impact of our technology.
“It’s a testament to the amazing work from our whole team over the past three years, to bring our unique indoor growing products to market. We’re looking forward to working with the best growers from around the world, to realise the full impact of our technology over the coming years!”
LettUs Grow’s incredibly unique aeroponic indoor farming tech enables crops to grow without sunlight or soil – and what’s more is this revolutionary innovation reduces water and fertiliser use by up to 95%, without requiring pesticides or herbicides.
This new system of growing our food has the potential to make an incredible environmental impact on delivering your food from farm to fork as farms can be situated in either rural or urban locations.
The judges were hugely impressed by the breath of positive impact LettUs Grow could have. Ana Avaliani, Head of Enterprise Hub at the Royal Academy of Engineering and judge on this year’s panel says, “Despite working in the increasingly popular sector of vertical farming, Charlie impressed the judges with LettUs Grow’s truly innovative patent-pending technology with a unique farm management software for indoor and vertical farms.
“I’m excited to watch the business scale and expand into markets outside the UK, deliver on its mission to reduce the waste and carbon footprint of fresh produce and see how Shell’s funding can support this growth.”
A passionate pitch
The finalists took part in a day of pitching to bid for the number one spots. Charlie’s clear enthusiasm for LettUs Grow impressed the judges, as Ana tells us, “Charlie himself has all of the makings of an entrepreneur: his vision for the company – to grow the world’s leading vertical farming business – was evident in every aspect of the presentation, and his passion to feed people in a more sustainable way was clear.”
All the finalists were then invited to attend StartUp Connect, a Shell event for low carbon startups with the ambition to scale up.
Founder of StartUp Britain, Oli Barrett, hosted the afternoon, which connected 100 low carbon entrepreneurs with over 300 senior executives and bright minds with the ability to help get their startup off the ground.
Congratulations to LettUs Grow for the prize and award! Check out LettUs Grow’s website for more information about them, or follow them on Twitter here: @LettUsGrow.