INDIA: Gourmet Garden Raises Over USD 3 Million Funding

Gourmet Garden aims to expand their zero-contamination farming operations, broaden their portfolio with additional fresh categories, boost customer experience by deploying India’s first end-to-end B2C tech-enabled cold-chain, and improve ease of ordering with a mobile app and refreshed website.

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01 July, 2021

by BW Online Bureau

Arjun Balaji Co-founder and Director Gourmet Garden and Vishal Narayanaswamy Co-founder Gourmet Garden.png

Gourmet Garden, the first full-range zero-contamination F&V brand in the country, has announced its latest round of funding of Rs 25 Crores led by Beyond Next Ventures, M Venture Partners, and existing investors Incubate India & Whiteboard Capital among others.

Established in early 2019, Gourmet Garden is known for offering the widest range of zero-contamination vegetables and fruits and other curated essential offerings. They stand out on quality and safety owing to their patented naturoponic farming operations, certified organic farming extensions, and a lean 1-day & 2-touch supply chain. Already a leading brand in Bengaluru and Chennai, the start-up is founded by Arjun Balaji, erstwhile a Partner at McKinsey and Company, and Vishal Narayanaswamy who launched among the first hydroponic farms in India.

With this funding, Gourmet Garden aims to expand their zero-contamination farming operations, broaden their portfolio with additional fresh categories, boost customer experience by deploying India’s first end-to-end B2C tech-enabled cold-chain, and improve ease of ordering with a mobile app and refreshed website.

Arjun Balaji, Co-founder, and Director, Gourmet Garden said, "We are fulfilling the consumer need-gap for a brand offering wholesome, distinctly fresh and safe food essentials for everyday consumption. Most other offerings are aggregating commodity supply, however, our focus has been to operate end-to-end and focus disproportionately on source quality and safety, which is at the core of overall customer experience and differentiation.”

"We wish to be the favoured brand destination for all things wholesome, fresh and curated. Our patented Naturoponic farming yields the highest quality vegetables and is our customers’ most loved offering. Essentials grown in certified organic farms along with an assortment of imported fruits make up our extended safe F&V range. In addition, we also offer a selection of authentic spices and dry fruits, and will soon be launching wholesome breads and organic sauces & dips for a wider range in fresh” said Vishal Narayanaswamy, Co-founder, Gourmet Garden.

The company now spans 60,000 customers in Bengaluru and Chennai alone. Over 75% orders, every month come from repeat customers, a testimony to their loyalty-building quality.

Tsuyoshi Ito, CEO, and Akito Arima, Agri/FoodTech Lead Capitalist, Beyond Next Ventures said, “We are delighted to see that their sustainable cultivation techniques and quality of succulent vegetables are comparable to those in Japan. The focus on affordable, high-quality and safe fruits and vegetables is rising in urban India. Gourmet Garden possesses a full basket of high-quality produce, delivered in shortest time keeping their loyal customers happy.”

“Simply put, we partner with great founder entrepreneurs,” commented Mayank Parekh, Founder - M Venture Partners, a Singapore-based venture capitalist. “The distinctive talent combination of Arjun and Vishal is the perfect formula to scale this incredible offering for consumers”

The existing investors are very excited by the progress thus far and have extended their commitments further. Nao Murakami, Founder - Incubate Fund India, said, “Since our initial investment in the start-up a few months ago, the founders and the team have shown a very strong execution capability. Even under COVID-19 pandemic and the series of lockdowns, the team managed to operate with full intensity despite a leaner covid-impacted team, showing agility to solve challenges. This is clearly backed by their passion and conviction”

"We continue to be very excited by the organic growth and customer love that has become the cornerstone of Gourmet Garden's promise. The offering has scaled well and is all set to become the largest clean and contamination-free fresh essentials D2C brand in India and we are looking forward to the journey ahead with Arjun, Vishal, and our co-investors" said Anshu Prasher, General Partner at Whiteboard Capital.

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USA (CA) - Iron Ox Raises $20 Million To Grow Robotic Greenhouse Operations

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Khari Johnson @kharijohnson

September 9, 2020

Robotics farming company Iron Ox today announced the close of a $20 million funding round. The funding will be used to open additional robotic growing facilities in California and other parts of the U.S., according to company co-founder and CEO Brandon Alexander. The funding will also be used to hire additional machine learning and robotics experts as well as growers and scientists who work with plants.

“We’re now competing on price with field farms, but we think we can do even better and take this to more people,” he said.

Iron Ox employs a 1,000-pound mobile transport system roughly the size of a car to move trays of growing vegetables and tend to plants using a robotic grasper while computer vision systems monitor the plant growth cycle. The semi-autonomous system still relies on humans for a part of its seeding, pruning, and inspection process, Alexander said, but the goal is for Iron Ox to someday be fully autonomous.

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While startups like Bowery practice indoor vertical farming in urban facilities near New York and Baltimore, Iron Ox has turned its focus toward greenhouse farming since the company was founded in 2015 as a way to lower energy costs. Earlier this year, Iron Ox opened its first greenhouse, a 10,000-square foot facility in Gilroy, California, the company’s second location. Iron Ox currently provides produce to 15 Whole Foods stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Though Gilroy is known as the garlic capital of the world, Iron Ox does not currently grow any garlic. Instead, the company focuses on leafy green vegetables like lettuce and some herbs.

Alexander said Iron Ox’s biggest challenge is how to use data collected by sensors to train AI systems that produce higher yields at lower costs.

“I would say in agriculture as a whole it’s not just collecting data, it’s not just taking an image, but it’s actually how do you include that data into the decision making process?” Alexander said. “I would say that is the biggest challenge in ag is how do you respond to these each individual plants and the variety and all these little variables.”

The $20 million funding round was led by Pathbreak Ventures with participation from Crosslink Capital, Amplify Partners, Eniac Ventures, R7 Partners, Tuesday Ventures, and At One Ventures. Iron Ox is based in San Carlos, California. The company currently has 30 employees and has raised $45 million to date.

Field farming today is still the most efficient way to grow produce. However, concern about shrinking field yields and instability due to climate change has spurred interest in indoor farming. In 2018, international teams from companies like Microsoft and Tencent competed against each other to find out who could grow the highest yield of cucumbers inside a greenhouse using AI and automation. (Spoiler: The Microsoft team won.)

In other AI and agriculture news, last month the startup iFarm raised $4 million for its AI-driven urban farming solution, and in June the startup Burro began rolling out its autonomous farm robot in southern California to assist in grape harvesting.

Image credits: Iron Ox