Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
Advice For New Vertical Farmers: Grower Spotlight on Andrew Worrall
Andrew is LettUs Grow’s Farm Manager, he manages two of our sites across Bristol and has brought a wealth of knowledge into the company through his previous experience in indoor farming roles across the UK including at Grow Up, Raynor Foods & RootLabs. In this three part interview, we explore what it’s been like to move from animal husbandry to indoor farming, the lessons he’s learned along the way, what it’s like working at LettUs Grow and his advice for those new to indoor growing.
Last week we spoke about running a farm at LettUs Grow. What excites you about vertical farming?
It’s the future of the industry. Also, the amount of salad that these farms can produce for their local community. We want to be able to eat salad all year round and we import to make that happen. However, just a small farm can easily provide for its local community, very efficiently and all year round. The sustainability element is also exciting: with our salad there’s no food miles, it’s very minimalistic. You could use an electric van or bike to distribute this crop if you wanted to. It’s a step forward in terms of what we need to do to take care of our planet.
What do you think are the biggest downsides to vertical farming?
It’s still a new technology and it can be expensive. The biggest roadblock facing the industry is that we need more people and companies to collaborate together to make sure we can build these farms at a sensible rate, so we can provide farms to anyone. We want to be able to provide farms to people, communities and countries that don’t have a lot of money, so that they can provide affordable fresh produce to local people.
How has vertical farming impacted your life?
Massively! I wanted to find my passion, a job that I loved - that was very important to me. It’s satisfying to be in a position now where I’m very happy to be doing what I do and I look forward to going into work. I was happy to make the move from London to Bristol. I would have moved even further if it meant being able to continue working within this industry.
Image from: LettUs Grow
How do you see vertical farming playing a part in the future?
When indoor farming first came about, it had a reputation of being competition for outdoor farming, which just isn’t the case. There’s so much we can’t grow that outdoor farming can provide, such as cereal crops. I’m glad we’re at a stage where indoor and outdoor farms can start to work together to optimise both methods. With these new relationships, there should be a good increase in the amount of indoor farms you’ll be seeing. What LettUs Grow offers with DROP & GROW™ is an exciting project because that’s a 40ft shipping container which can be placed pretty much anywhere. It’s not that big - it could go in a car park or behind a restaurant, but actually provide quite a lot of salad to that area.
How much of our food should be grown this way?
Good question. If you had asked me a while back I would have just said salad, but now I’ve changed my mind. Indoor farming can have a massive impact on propagation, especially aeroponics, because of how we aerate and nourish our roots. We could start lettuce for greenhouse projects and we can also propagate tomatoes, strawberries and tree whips. Propagating trees in this way could potentially be hugely beneficial and it’s something we want to do more of.
We can also quickly grow large amounts of microgreens, baby leafs, herbs and we can grow fruiting crops like strawberries. We are slowly chipping away and it’s really exciting. I’m waiting to see if I can ever say I’ve grown or propagated every crop that can be grown in these farms!
What do you think are the biggest benefits of vertical farming?
How fast these crops can grow! The turnover can be as short as 5 days from seed, depending on the crop. Also how clean it can be - I’m very dedicated to making sure these farms are built to ensure they are easy to be maintained and clean. The most exciting part is the crop growth rate though - it’s incredible how fast our crop grows from seed to plate. In a very well maintained growing calendar, which Ostara® is great for supporting, you can optimise your beds so that the day you harvest can also be the day you germinate onto that same bed. Your farms can be forever providing salad at very fast rates.
Image from: LettUs Grow
What was the biggest change you encountered during your years indoor farming?
Moving from being a production grower to an R&D grower. It has been a great change! As a production grower I knew what I needed to know about growing the plant safely and getting it onto a plate so it was good for the consumer. Now I’m fully optimising, learning and understanding the plants completely, so that I can help the grower that I used to be. We spend a lot of time on crop recipes to make sure that whoever we sell our farms to can start up very quickly and they won’t have to spend months developing their crops. If they have the customers and clients behind them, they can buy DROP & GROW and start producing salad as soon as it's been commissioned.
What was the biggest change you encountered in the industry?
More and more people are speaking about what’s going on in the industry and getting involved. I get so many messages on LinkedIn with people who want to get into this career. It’s exciting to see that indoor growing is a career people can access now. When I was developing my skills I didn’t know I would end up in indoor farming. There are more opportunities than ever before. For example, our Crop Technician is doing a placement here for 2 years. The aim is that they can gain the skill sets and knowledge they need to then go off and do the same practice in any farm they want.
What advice do you have for people who are looking to start a career in growing?
Reach out to companies who are already out there. You could start off part-time or as an assistant. If you are patient and dedicated then it’s a journey I promise you won’t regret. It takes a lot of work, but the outcome is amazing - you’ll be learning so much about this new technology. You’ll also build great relationships: there are so many amazing people in this industry who are so interesting, with different backgrounds, who are willing to share their knowledge. You can always learn more and other people are a great source of that.
What about for those looking to start a vertical farming business?
Do your homework. There are people out there who you can reach out to and it’s very easy to get information. It’s very easy to get excited about the idea and jump straight into it, because it is exciting and can be very rewarding, but it’s really important to do it step by step. Know how to scale properly, learning the differences between a small and larger farm. Understand how many people you’ll need and the logistics. I’d also advise people to get some practical work experience before you buy. You want to start the company knowing the tricks of the trade.
Image from: LettUs Grow
LettUs Grow Blog: www.lettusgrow.com/blog/advice-for-vertical-farmers
Seattle Architect Is Helping The Fast-Growing Field of Indoor Ag Take Root
Seattle architect Melanie Corey-Ferrini is launching a controlled-environment business with assists from Sabey Corp., and Microsoft. The multifaceted, to-be-named enterprise includes a training program at Alan T. Sugiyama High School at South Lake in Seattle, where she is pictured in the cafeteria with a grow tower. Anthony Bolante | PSBJ
By Marc Stiles – Senior Staff Writer, Puget Sound Business Journal
January 16, 2021
Seattle architect Melanie Corey-Ferrini’s kiosk-style lobby pop-up concept called G2 is the ultimate in farm-to-fork dining. Protein-rich grains and greens are grown on-site in the unmanned, transparent kiosk and combined with other veggies, roots, spices and dairy to make custom bowls ordered on a mobile app. G2 last summer was named best pioneering food service concept in a national contest.
It’s one small example of the possibilities of controlled-environment agriculture (CEA), which is at the heart of Corey-Ferrini’s latest endeavor: a multifaceted, urban ag project largely centered in Tukwila, where Sabey Corp. is providing warehouse space for hydroponic growing equipment that Microsoft donated.
Corey-Ferrini will use space at Sabey’s Intergate East data center campus to build and launch CEA education and business development programs this year.
CEA is a technology-based approach to food production that allows indoor farmers to maximize use of water, energy and labor. Worldwide in the third quarter, venture capitalists invested $1.6 billion in ag tech companies, bringing the 2020 total to $4.2 billion, according to PitchBook. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, a developer of life science office and lab space, offers early-stage companies move-in-ready space at its Center for AgTech in Durham, North Carolina.
The sector has struggled to put down roots in the Seattle region, where there has been one unsuccessful attempt. Now comes not only Corey-Ferrini’s to-be-named enterprise but also Kalera, a Florida-based company that plans to open a facility in 70,000 square feet of leased space in Lacey this year.
Several years ago, Corey-Ferrini consulted with Microsoft on a CEA project in Redmond. Contract farmers used Microsoft’s PowerBI and Azure platforms to grow in hydroponic towers lettuce and micro-greens for company cafeterias.
“I was like, why aren’t more people doing this? It seems like it should be a programmatic feature in all food-related spaces,” said Corey-Ferrini. “I’ve learned it’s really a little bit of robotics, a little bit of AI, a little bit of automation.”
As a member of Soroptimist Seattle, which works to empower women and girls, she is establishing a program at Alan T. Sugiyama at South Lake, an alternative public high school in the Rainier Valley. She is working with other groups like New Roots, an International Rescue Committee program that provides land and other support in South King County to around 150 immigrant and refugee families.
Deepa Iyer, senior program coordinator for New Roots, said a pilot indoor ag tech and business class will be offered at the Sabey building through Corey-Ferrini’s enterprise. She said it will provide pathways not only to a year-round growing platform but training for tech careers.
The experience of a Seattle indoor ag business, UrbanHarvest, shows the challenges of such an endeavor. Six years ago, it worked with Seattle’s Millionair Club Charity (now Uplift Northwest) during its launch, but the program shut down after about a year when it couldn’t raise additional funds, said founder Chris Bajuk.
Corey-Ferrini is approaching it with a long-term view and plans to build a multipronged enterprise with multiple income streams. Kara Anderson, director of architecture at Sabey, said Corey-Ferrini has a good shot at pulling this off.
“She’s got endless energy,” said Anderson, who added that, like Sabey, Corey-Ferrini is known for outside-the-box thinking.
“She’s not afraid to pick up an idea without knowing really how she’s going to pull it together. She just starts marching down the path to get partners and grab people into her extensive network to brainstorm,” said Anderson.
Sabey, a developer and operator of data centers nationwide, sees opportunities in the project for both its business and community.
“We’re interested in what’s going on in our backyard and opportunities to help out and make some lives better if we can,” Anderson said “At some point these indoor facilities will be monitored by computers and that, in turn, ends up feeding into the data center world.”
Melanie Corey-Ferrini
Position: Chief experience architect
Company: Dynamik Space, a design and branding company
Founded: 2000
Career: Also currently CEO of 3.14DC, which programs food and retail spaces
Lessons Learned
Use your sense of humor.
Be curious.
Don’t fear failure.
Joint UAE-Israel Food And Water Security Conference Announced
The first-ever UAE-Israel food security summit will take place later this month, bringing together Israeli food and water security companies and investors from the UAE
Could Israel’s success story of “making the desert bloom” boost food security in the UAE?
BY GULF BUSINESS STAFF
JANUARY 6, 2021
The first-ever UAE-Israel food security summit will take place later this month, bringing together Israeli food and water security companies and investors from the UAE.
GoforUAE-Israel Food Security Investment Conference will have experts from both countries explore strategic partnerships and capital market opportunities. This event aims to improve the productivity of desert environments in the Middle East and worldwide.
To be held on January 18, the online conference will address pertinent issues in agriculture and food security such as precision agriculture, desert farming, development of resilient species, advanced storage solutions, and more.
“Our mission for this event is to introduce emerging technologies that can facilitate the UAE access to food security solutions in the long term”, said Edouard Cukierman, chairman of Cukierman Investment House and Managing Partner at Catalyst Funds.
“Since its founding in 1948, Israel has never stopped inventing agricultural technologies that greatly improve farming everywhere, especially in arid areas. Israel gladly shares its experience, innovations and achievements in this field with the rest of the world. With Similar weather, conditions and water scarcity to the UAE, and 60 percent of Israel’s land covered by the Negev desert, Israel and the UAE can jointly make an impact on desert farming to enable quality, available food in the Middle East and worldwide,” he added.
Read: Israeli tech companies make debut at Gitex 2020
Hundreds of investors from the UAE have already registered for the conference to explore some of Israel’s most promising and innovative solutions for food and water security and agtech, the organizers said.
Participating Israel firms include Saturas, a pioneer of in-tree water intelligence systems based on water monitoring from within the plant. Saturas can then offer tailored irrigation based on the crop’s real-time water needs, resulting in efficient water use.
Also taking part is Ramat Negev Research & Development, an R&D center that develops agro-technical methods suitable for desert conditions. Ramat Negev R&D has recently established a new ag-tech innovation center jointly with Arieli Capital to boost Negev agriculture through co-developing with emerging startups.
Register Here
SmartHectar And AgTech Insight Announce Corporate Innovation and Implementation Services With The Launch Of Enable Latin America
SmartHectar and Enpact work with corporates to help identify and prioritize technology needs, bring potential solutions from startups, facilitate “innovation challenge” programs, and refine products
November 5, 2020
SmartHectar And AgTech Insight Announce Corporate Innovation and Implementation Services With The Launch Of Enable Latin America
Driving innovation throughout the Ag and food ecosystems can be a challenge which is why SmartHectar, AgTech Insight, and Enpact are working together to lead Latin American corporates through industry modernization challenges. With the launch of Enable Latin America, AgTech Insight is bringing their innovation implementation services to the table to further the success of these programs and provide corporates with the technical and tactical support required when integrating technology.
SmartHectar and Enpact work with corporates to help identify and prioritize technology needs, bring potential solutions from startups, facilitate “innovation challenge” programs, and refine products. AgTech Insight will further support stakeholders by providing additional services to fully commercialize and integrate the solution. As the corporate innovation program wraps up, AgTech Insight works with the AgriFood organization to understand user needs and company culture to develop and implement an action plan. They can manage field trials, and once proven, provide localization, go to market support, and training to scale those solutions throughout the operations to achieve full impact.
“It is exciting to be collaborating with the incredible work SmartHectar and Enpact do! By offering another level of support to their programs, we are able to complete the idea-to-commercialization loop and help both corporates and innovators see measurable success in their efforts” Says Aaron Magenheim, CEO of AgTech Insight.
As the new project kicked off, Matthias Schmidt, CEO of SmartHectar and Marcelino Turati Gomez talked with Aaron Magenheim, and Gonzalo Perez, MD at Arpegio Ventures to share with us some of their perspectives and insights. Read it here.
SmartHectar and Enpact have been successfully running Enable Southeast Asia and Enable West Africa programs which foster collaboration between corporates and startups in the region to drive innovation in AgriFood and water technology. Agriculture has always been at the core of the Latin American economy and especially in the last few years, we have seen an increase in digital trends and technological innovation taking hold in the sector. The new approach which Enables Latin America brings to the region will speed up adoption and return on investment to corporates, startups, and the ecosystem as a whole.
Contact
AgTech Insight - Aaron Magenheim, CEO
+1-855-410-2030
Matthias Schmidt-Rex (CEO SmartHectar Innovation)
+49 151 42414237
Living Lettuce, Vertical Gardening: This Startup Is Using AI For Organic Farming
Analytics India Magazine got in touch with Shivendra Singh, founder and CEO of Barton Breeze, who believes that in the future the vegetable greens will likely come from the building next to you
13/10/2020
Srishti currently works as Associate Editor at Analytics India Magazine.…
The interest and popularity of organic and sustainable farming are increasing drastically. While the consumers are often skeptical about the food products that they consume, Dubai and New Delhi-based Barton Breeze is growing safe, delicious, and healthy food while relying on analytics and AI. It offers top-quality products that are grown locally in nutrient-rich water without pesticides. The crops are harvested weekly and delivered to sales outlets within a couple of hours.
Following the principle of ‘living lettuce’, it follows a method where roots are left intact, which makes it last longer. The startup also follows vertical gardening where it uses vertically stacked growing beds, up to five levels high using less than 1% of the space required by the conventional growing, a precious commodity in densely populated urban areas.
Analytics India Magazine got in touch with Shivendra Singh, founder and CEO of Barton Breeze, who believes that in the future the vegetable greens will likely come from the building next to you.
The Journey
After graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, Singh started working on a pilot project around hydroponics and set up two container farms in Dubai. “During this time I thought, a country like India with profound climate changes needs this technology more than anyone else,” he says.
Soon after, Barton Breeze was established in 2015 in Dubai, UAE, with a mission for technology innovation in agriculture. As Singh recalls, the journey initially was challenging and well expected, but with the right vision, it became unstoppable. In addition to the lack of proper information, availability of funds, market volatility, the task to create consumer confidence was critical. Another challenge was that hydroponics was a new technology to adapt, and the existing unprofessional quality and high prices made it difficult to find the right customer in the market.
Overcoming these challenges, Barton Breeze is now the market leader in the sector and has expanded operations to India.
Data Science And AI Is At The Core
Barton Breeze team includes experts from deep data science to engineering, and from marketing to producing. “When we started, people had no idea about this new technology. And whatever talent was available, they had to unlearn. Training and building our staff from the ground up, we are now a team of six core members, supported by 25 field farms,” added Singh.
Explaining how Barton Breeze uses analytics and AI to increase the farm produce, Singh shares the areas as below:
Smart Farms: Each smart farm is backed with the expertise of the chief technology officer, a dedicated R&D team, plant scientists, microbiologists, mechanical engineers, and design engineers.
Cloud Architecture and Data Center: Barton Breeze collects hundreds of data points at each of its farms to its data center, which allows it to quickly alter its indoor precision control for taste, texture, color, and nutrition. It also helps in adjusting variables like temperature and humidity to optimize its crop yields. Barton also collects all yield and harvest data into the cloud to calculate sales projections and market trends.
Using Artificial Intelligence and IoT (Internet of things): Barton uses software with a device clipped on the stems and leaves of each plant. It informs the nutrients or mineral needs of the plants.
Highlighting other venues where AI is used, Singh shares that they have perfected their algorithm for optimal taste, texture, color, and nutrition so one can taste the science of flavor in every delicious bite of leafy greens. “We do this by leveraging plant science, engineering, and lighting to optimize our plants while also using 85% less water, 5x productivity, and zero pesticides,” he added.
He further shares that Barton Breeze carefully monitors the health and quality of plants daily to optimize taste, texture, color, nutrition, and yield to deliver a better product using AI. “Barton’s growing techniques can be highly customized,” he said.
The startup has also developed iFarm, a cloud-based data and farm output AI software. It allows the clients to get all their farm and production details on the cloud at home or office. “Our farm dashboard and IoT uses artificial intelligence and data analytics to measure important indicators that help in food/crop planning and hence help connect in the food security ecosystem,” he said.
Some areas where AI and IoT are used at Barton:
SMS alert system
Data logging facility
Online monitoring and control
Sensor-based control system
Environment management system
Water temperature management
Sunlight monitoring system
Crop management system
Farm system efficiency dashboard
Nutrition management system
Barton team includes members with deep expertise in science, engineering, technology, food safety, crop physiology, microbiology, and more to help deliver rapidly deployable and scalable solutions.
“Being first and one of a kind in the segment of agri-tech, we at Barton Breeze are trying to create and promote healthy lifestyle’ To achieve it, we are working into the whole ecosystem in the form of B-FRESH, B-FARM and B-HOME,” shares Singh.
Growth Story
With experienced and known names in the team, Barton Breeze has increased team members, post-COVID to increase the outreach. “Currently we are in 10 states, and Barton Breeze is planning to enter five more states in the next couple of months,” shared Singh. The startup takes pride in increased customer query by 200% and increased consumer awareness by 10X post COVID.
Singh further shares that there has been an increase in the interest level from angel investors and venture capitals for Barton Breeze with VC calls gone up by 150%. The startup is closing 1.5 million USD funding within this year.
“Our goal is to achieve 360-ton produce marketing per year by the end of March 2021 while adding 25 more clients. We are targeting 50 crores revenue @CAGR 800%. We would also be coming up with ten new commercialized farms apart from doing R&D on 50 crop varieties,” concluded Singh on an ambitious note.
Srishti currently works as Associate Editor at Analytics India Magazine. When not covering the analytics news, editing, and writing articles, she could be found reading or capturing thoughts into pictures.
Agtech Sector Blooms As More Dollars And Startups Rush In
Farming has been around for thousands of years, but investments and startup activity in agricultural technology, commonly known as “agtech” or “agritech,” have only exploded over the past five years
Christine Hall | August 20, 2020.
Twitter: ChristineMHall
Farming has been around for thousands of years, but investments and startup activity in agricultural technology, commonly known as “agtech” or “agritech,” have only exploded over the past five years.
In fact, in each of the last two years, venture capitalists invested $4 billion in startups in the agtech space, according to Crunchbase data. Based on the $2.6 billion already given out as of Aug. 14 of this year, 2020 is poised to repeat or even exceed the previous years.
Better Food Ventures Partner Seana Day began tracking agtech startups more than five years ago. She said that farming is an area that isn’t typically tech-enabled. In fact, COVID-19 reminded the world about the food supply chain, she added.
“There was a disconnect between demand signals and supply, which is why you saw empty grocery shelves,” she said. “At the same time, the dairy farmers were dumping milk because they didn’t have a process in place to massively produce small consumer packaging.”
Day estimates that global food and agriculture fund managers have about $130 billion in assets under management, which is driving a surge in investments as well as a shift in thinking.
Farmers have historically been resistant to change, Day said, but at the end of the day, they are rational business people. That means that if a startup can show a farmer a product or service that will boost the return on investment—increasing revenue or decreasing costs—the company will have a better chance of making the sale.
The challenge comes in for tech companies that offer apps meant to save time and increase job productivity, areas that aren’t necessarily needed for farmers, she added.
There is also a shift in legacy food companies thinking digitally. Day points to Tyson Foods as an example. The meat producer earlier this month promoted Dean Banks to CEO. He joined Tyson as president last December from Alphabet’s high-tech incubator X.
“That is a huge signal from a company making bold moves, saying ‘we want to be a leader in this space,’” Day added.
New investments
This year has been particularly busy for the agtech innovation sector, as startups secured both big and small investments.
One of the largest went to Farmers Business Network, which raised $250 million in Series F funding earlier this month. Day said the San Carlos, California-based company was one of the pioneers in e-commerce models, helping farmers optimize their financial performances by finding demand for supply.
Meanwhile, Berkeley-based Pivot Bio announced a $100 million funding round in April, led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Temasek, to scale its microbial nitrogen technology. The company said the technology increases crop yields, and in turn, farmers’ revenues. Biodesign startup Geltor brought in $91.3 million in a Series B round in July, led by CPT Capital, to make proteins, such as collagen and elastin, but without animals. The startup’s products are used in beauty, and food and beverage products.
One of the newest is iFarm, a Finland-based startup providing indoor farming technology for growing fresh greens, berries and vegetables. On Thursday, it announced that Gagarin Capital led its $4 million investment with other investors including Matrix Capital, Impulse VC, IMI.VC and several angel investors.
iFarm, founded in 2017, has more than 50 ongoing projects with clients in Europe and the Middle East for 2020, Max Chizhov, co-founder and CEO, told Crunchbase News. The company will use the funding to develop its iFarm Growtune tech platform; expand into new regions in Eastern and Northern Europe and the Middle East; and will experiment with growing strawberries, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, radishes and other crops.
“We think this is an interesting time to be in agtech, and we think we are in the right time and right place, especially as there is more attention on food and agtech and a pipeline of investments,” Chizhov said. “We are focusing on how to change the supply chain, and we believe we are one of the solutions to solve this problem.”
Last week, we also reported on a new company, Unfold, which is focused on vertical farming. Bayer’s investment arm, Leaps by Bayer, and Singapore-based investment firm Temasek infused $30 million into the new company.
Unfold’s President and CEO John Purcell said he is bullish on the farming sector, seeing a need for genetics in vertical farming. The company has an agreement for certain rights to germplasm from Bayer’s vegetable portfolio that includes lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.
“Technology has to catch up with the promise,” he said. “There has been an overall trend in produce moving toward vertical farming and greenhouse, but the hard part is you have to have the tech to make it feasible.”
The “tech” in question is lighting, mechanics and a system in place. Then it has to be competitive with the other forms of production so potential customers will see its value, Purcell added.
New areas of agtech
Purcell sees three promising areas for the agtech industry:
Major urban areas, where there is a desire for local, fresh food;
Self-sufficiency, or helping places where there is limited arable land; and
Produce supply chains, or getting food from the farm to fulfillment centers.
Ashley Tyrner, founder and CEO of Farmbox Direct, thinks there should be one more area: food as medicine. She is in the process of raising $10 million for her East Coast-based organic and natural produce delivery service.
Tyrner said she saw her business grow more than 2,000 percent during COVID-19. In that time, Farmbox also began working with Medicare to provide box services to patients identified as those who need to eat healthier to manage chronic disease.
“The climate has changed in Silicon Valley, and VCs are welcoming because we are doing food as medicine,” she added. “We were the first to find an insurance company to work with us to help patients change their eating patterns. We are creating a new space here.”
In the area of crop protection is Canada-based MustGrow Biologics, an agricultural biotechnology company taking natural compounds from mustard seeds and turning them into pesticides that fortify the soil.
The pesticide industry is valued at $65 billion, but most are synthetics, Corey Giasson, president and CEO of MustGrow, told Crunchbase News in an interview. The biologics side of the pesticide industry is growing, but is still worth only about one-sixth that amount, he said.
The slower growth is due to biologics in the past not being as effective as synthetic fertilizers, so MustGrow has been doing a lot of studies to show that its product works.
“Farmers want to use products that are healthy and safe, but need something effective to grow a crop that will suppress pests,” he said. “We also have a growing population globally, and we need to feed people, doing it in a safe, environmentally sustainable way.”
New opportunities
Crunchbase data shows that is the most active agtech venture investor, having made 20 venture investments in the agtech space since it was founded 10 years ago. It was most recently involved in India-based Intello Labs’ $5.9 million Series A round. The company uses image matching and machine learning to measure the quality of crops.
A new player is FTW Ventures, led by Brian Frank, who on Thursday announced he is raising his first “problem-focused fund” aimed at early-stage food and agricultural startups.
Frank already raised the $4 million fund, in which he will invest in 15 to 20 deals at about $200,000 to $250,000. He has already made five investments, the most recent in April as a part of Plantible Foods’ $4.6 million seed round. He was also an investor in Plantible’s pre-seed round. The San Marcos, California-based B2B food technology company is developing plant-based protein.
Frank predicts some of the hotter areas will include hardware and automation, software and SaaS, novel products–such as Plantible–and personalized nutrition. He also said that consumers are driving the way food makes its way from the farm to the fork.
“I came into this sector from mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, with a deep-seated passion for food,” he said in an interview. “There is a major shift in consumer trends as they look for more resilient and sustainable food. Climate change is both an effect of food and it impacts food. Plants can’t just move to a new climate, so we need to help them.”
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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