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Vertical Farm Company Raises $90 Million To Grow More Veggies In The Middle Of New York City
December 15, 2018
Senior Editor, UK | Contactable via charlotte@livekindly.co
Vertical farming company Bowery has closed a $90 million fundraising round, allowing it to grow even more veggies in the middle of New York City. Google Ventures led the round, which was also participated in by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
According to Venture Beat, First Round Capital, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, and Temasek also participated in the round, which follows the $27.5 million the business raised in June; the total amount raised by Bowery now stands at $117.5 million.
Founded in 2017, Bowery intends to revolutionize the agriculture industry. The company currently has two farms in New York, but thanks to the new funding, in 2019, it plans to open two more, in cities that are currently unnamed. It also hopes to advance company tech and innovation with the funding.
According to Bowery, indoor farms provide a solution to impending water scarcity and don’t require the use of harmful pesticides. The farms are unaffected by the weather or season changes, and they allow scientists to closely monitor the crop-growing process, enabling them to give the plants no more than exactly what they need. Bowery currently grows crops such as baby kale, arugula, and butterhead lettuce and supplies them to vegan-friendly restaurant chain Sweetgreen and Whole Foods stores.
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Speaking to Fortune earlier this year, Bowery’s CEO Irving Fain said, “We’re growing post-organic produce, it’s the next evolution. It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
He continued, “At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.”
Growing Demand For Indoor Vertical Farms
As populations rise around the world and climate change looms, the need for indoor farming facilities is growing. Companies are striving to minimize their carbon footprint by purchasing sustainable produce from farms that are close by.
Bowery isn’t alone in satisfying this demand, indoor farming company Farm.One – based underneath a New York Michelin-starred restaurant – delivers its produce to the best eateries in the city via bike or subway.
In Las Vegas, Oasis Biotech recently set up its first indoor vertical farm, and In August, Plenty attended its first-ever event, Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco, selling its vertically grown kale and arugula.
Image Credit: Farm.One
Bowery, An Indoor Farming Startup, Raises $90 Million More, Including To Counter A SoftBank-Funded Rival
Connie Loizos@cookie / December 12, 2018
When in July of last year, SoftBank’s Vision Fund led a whopping $200 million round in the Silicon Valley startup Plenty, investors behind a competing indoor farming startup across the country, New York-based Bowery, were left reeling. Just one month earlier, they’d closed on a round that brought Bowery’s total funding to $31 million. As one of Bowery’s backers told us in the immediate aftermath of Plenty’s enormous round, SoftBank’s involvement “definitely gives you pause.”
Its involvement has not, however, prompted investors to give up. On the contrary, Bowery just today announced that it has raised $90 million in fresh funding led by GV, with participation from Temasek and Almanac Ventures; the company’s Series A investors, General Catalyst and GGV Capital; and numerous of its seed investors, including First Round Capital.
It’s easy to understand investors’ unwavering interest in the company and the space, given the opportunity that Bowery, and Plenty, and hundreds of other indoor farming startups, are chasing. As Bowery outlined in a post this morning, “traditional agriculture uses 700 million pounds of pesticides annually, and fresh food takes weeks” and sometimes longer to land on the dinner table. Along the way, terrible things sometimes happen, including E.coli outbreaks, like the kind recently linked to the sale of romaine lettuce in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Bowery, which is growing crops inside two warehouses in New Jersey, can promise people in New York that their bok choy didn’t travel far at all.
Bowery also appears to be gaining the kind of momentum that VCs want to see. According to the company, it started life with five employees three years ago; today its staff has ballooned to 65 people. It has established a distribution partnership with Whole Foods. It has partnered with sweetgreen, the fast-food chain known for its farm-to-table salad bowls, and Dig Inn, a New York- and Boston-based chain of locally farm-sourced restaurants.
Unsurprisingly, the company says it plans to partner with new retail, food service and restaurant partners in the new year, too.
Bigger picture, Bowery says it plans to build a “global distributed network of farms” that are connected to each other through a kind of operating system, and that it has already begun work on the first of these outside the tri-state area.
Whether it succeeds in that vision is anyone’s guess at this point. It’s hard to know how big an impact that Bowery, or Plenty (which plans to build 300 indoor farms in or near Chinese cities) or any of its many competitors will ultimately have. But given that we’ll need to feed two billion more people by 2050 without overwhelming the planet, it’s also easy to understand from a humanitarian standpoint why investors might be keen to write these companies big checks. In fact, the rest of us should probably be rooting them on, too.
Image Credits: Tom Baker / EyeEm
GV Leads $90 Million Investment In Bowery Farming
December 12, 2018
( Photo courtesy Bowery Farming )
With a $90-million investment, Bowery Farming plans to build large-scale indoor farms in cities across the country.
Bowery Farming, Kearny, N.J., recently closed the investment deal led by GV, previously Google Ventures.
The new capital — a Series B funding round — brings the indoor vertical farming company’s funding to $117.5 million, according to a news release. The total includes investments from GGV, General Catalyst, First Round Capital and Almanac, the food-tech fund of David Barber, co-owner of sustainable restaurant, working farm Blue Hill and consulting company. Singapore-based investor Temasek and Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, have also invested.
Prior investors include celebrity chefs Tom Colicchio, Carla Hall and José Andrés.
Bowery plans to use the capital to build warehouse farms in cities nationwide, opening them by the end of 2019, according to the release.
“We leverage our nascent technology, computer vision and machine learning to build a farm that gives plants exactly what they need,” Bowery CEO and co-founder Irving Fain said at a Dec. 4 media dinner showcasing the company’s products.
Since launching in February 2017, Bowery has opened two farms in Kearny. Tristate area groceries and restaurants are customers of the greens.
Related Topics: Produce Retail Produce Tech Lettuce
BREAKING: Bowery Raises $90m Series B From GV, Temasek
DECEMBER 12, 2018 LOUISA BURWOOD-TAYLOR
Bowery Farming, the New York-based indoor farming group, has closed a $90 million Series B round of funding in a round led by Google’s venture arm GV, an existing investor in the startup.
Singapore state fund Temasek also joined the round as a new investor alongside Almanac Investments, and Dara Khosrowshahi (CEO of Uber).
Bowery sells eight pesticide-free leafy green products: arugula, butterhead lettuce, romaine, bok choy, basil, and lettuce mixes branded as spring blend, kale mix, and sweet and spicy mix. Customers include Whole Foods, Foragers and Sweetgreens in the New York area, as well as a few restaurants.
The deal brings Bowery’s total funding to $117.5 million after it closed a $20 million Series A last year. Existing investors GGV Capital, General Catalyst and First Round Capital re-upped their investment in this round. Other shareholders include local New York chef sTom Colicchio, José Andrés and Carla Hall.
Bowery argues that it’s two vertical farms in the Tristate area are the most technologically advanced in the world. It uses a variety of hydroponic systems but they are all connected by its proprietary software system called BoweryOS. The system uses computer vision and robotic automation technology, guided by machine learning algorithms to monitor its crops and all the variables that drive their growth throughout the day.
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Chicago Marijuana Company Cresco Labs Raises $100 Million To Fuel Growth
2018
Chicago-based medical marijuana company Cresco Labs has raised $100 million in private funding to fuel continued expansion nationally and in Illinois.
Cresco Labs, which operates three cultivation centers in the state, just finished an expansion of its Joliet facility to more than double the amount of cannabis it can grow and process. The company has additional acreage available and is planning further expansions.
After years of regulatory roadblocks and lower-than-expected demand in Illinois’ medical cannabis pilot program, growers around the state are expanding to accommodate a patient count that is only expected to increase. A state report out earlier this week found that use of medical pot has risen 83 percent this year in Illinois, which has more than 46,000 qualified patients. Additionally, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill into law in late August that allows people prescribed opioids to use medical marijuana.
With this infusion of capital, Cresco also plans to increase its national footprint, CEO and co-founder Charlie Bachtell. The company has licenses to operate in Pennsylvania and Ohio and has acquired dispensary and cultivation operations in Arizona, Nevada and California.
Cresco employs about 300 people, more than half of whom are in Illinois. Bachtell said the company plans to hire more workers at its River North corporate headquarters.
“The needs that are placed on a company like Cresco are pretty significant, so we need to make sure we’ve got the resources in place to continue to be able to scale the company,” he said.
The private round of funding came from U.S. and international investors. The company also intends to complete a reverse takeover of a public Canadian company, following a similar move by fellow Chicago-based cannabis company Green Thumb Industries, or GTI.
GTI raised $67 million through its listing on a Canadian stock exchange in June. The company raised an additional $61.6 million in a financing deal that closed earlier this month, and it also is working to scale up its operations in Illinois. The company’s debut on the Canadian Securities Exchange helped cement investors’ interest in the industry.
Twitter @AllyMarotti
Copyright © 2018, Chicago Tribune
Medical Marijuana
City Farms To Rise Up In Russia
BY TOM JOYCE @tomfruitnet
10th October 2018 - London
TealTech Capital is investing in a network of vertical city farms in major Russian cities, with the first set to launch in Moscow
The TealTech Capital venture fund is creating a network of city farms in Russia dubbed Local Roots, according to GreenTalk.ru.
In the next three years, ten sites are reportedly planned for Moscow and other major Russian cities, for the cultivation of lettuce and greens.
The total capacity of the ten sites will reach around 1,000 tonnes per year, with an annual turnover of RUB1bn (€13m).
Such vertical farms employ aeroponic technology, where the plant roots are sprayed with a nutrient solution. For TealTech Capital, this will be its first agribusiness-related project.
Local Roots LLC was established in Moscow in August. TealTech has so far invested RUB6m (€78,500), but the project’s total investment has not been disclosed.
By the end of the year, the first phase of the Moscow farm is expected to be launched, with 8 tonnes of basil and rocket cultivated per year. By next March, the farm is expected to reach a capacity of 160 tonnes.
Initially, Local Roots will supply exclusively to food retailer Vkusvill, selling under the brand Local Roots. In the future, around half of the produce will be delivered to other chains and restaurants.
“It is extremely important to have an efficient supply chain, since the optimal sale time for salads does not exceed three days,” explained Mikhail Glushkov, executive director of the National Fruit and Vegetable Union.
In the off-season, he said, imported greens from Israel and Lebanon can take several days to reach the market, leading to losses of up to 60 per cent.
The potential of the Russian market for greens grown on city farms is estimated at 140,000 tonnes annually, with a turnover of around RUB70bn (€0.9bn).
Staay Food Group's Vertical Farm Build Awaiting Operating Grant
German retailers demand guaranteed subsidy before contracts are signed
The innovative lettuce plant Staay Food wants to build in the Dutch town of Dronten only exists on paper. This ambitious project - Europe's largest 'vertical farm' - has been delayed and is becoming substantially more costly. Company owner, Dammis van der Staaij, indicated on this site in December already that lettuce cultivation would no longer take place in the processing plant, but elsewhere on the site.
However, construction has not yet begun. It is waiting on an operating subsidy worth several million euros. According to the Group's Director, Rien Panneman, this needs to be granted by the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRO). ‘We do not yet have written confirmation that we will be getting the EFRO subsidy", he said in the Dutch business newspaper, the Financieel Dagblad. The lettuce's buyers, several German supermarket chains, want this guarantee before they sign any contracts.
Due to this delay, construction and installation costs have since increased by 25%. The investment, including installations, is now estimated to stand at EUR10 million. This means the lettuce will soon become more expensive, says Panneman. The three varieties Staay Food wants to grow - Lollo Bionda, Frisée, and Lollo Rosso - will, by the latest indication, be twice as expensive as regular lettuce. "It will certainly not be a commodity", says Panneman. ‘We are going to use it in ready-to-eat salads. Then it will be affordable, we think."
But, will construction continue? "We believe it will. We are pioneers in this field. It is just becoming an expensive project. Once the grant has been definitively secured, we can get started with the construction. I hope we will be able to harvest the first lettuce before the end of 2019", he says.
Source: Financieel Dagblad
Publication date : 9/25/2018
"The Hague Urban Greenhouse Cannot Be Made Profitable"
After more than two months following the bankruptcy of The Hague’s urban greenhouse by Urban Farmers, it has become clear that a revival is not possible. In the past months, the bankruptcy trustee has investigated the possibilities for this. The investigation has also shown the greenhouse has never been profitable.
In Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf the bankruptcy trustee, Mr. Martijn Vermeeren, of Buren Legal, says he did not find a new party. "We did our best but in the end no one was prepared to make a serious bid. There have been interested parties, but they deemed it impossible to make it profitable at that location."
Health centre
In the coming months, the activities on the roof will be terminated by the Municipal Fund for Space and Economy The Hague (FRED), shareholder of a third of the shares of the building. The breeding of the fish will be concluded. The facilities on the roof of the urban greenhouse turned out to be of little value.
Rooftop farm
The rooftop farm was an expensive project: the greenhouse has been fully constructed with double glazing – and the inner layer is also layered glass. In order to withstand the wind, a profile was developed in which the glass is anchored with screws. Various glass pane sizes were used in order to distribute the pressure on the construction. The greenhouse itself is divided into two parts – one part for the visitors and a part for cultivation.
Altogether it turned out not to be a viable plan. "The costs remained too high and the turnover low. The stakeholders couldn't agree on the strategy. One of the directors left in February 2017 and the stakeholders disagreed on the new director to be appointed. Partly because of the bankruptcy of one of the shareholders (UrbanFarmers AG in Switzerland), and the departure of various stakeholders, further decision-making or restructuring is impossible. FRED has subsequently been forced to file for bankruptcy", can be read in the bankruptcy report.
New Plan
Meanwhile Rob Baan, intrigued by the project, is working on a new plan for the urban greenhouse. He wants to turn it into a Health Center to provide some of the poorest neighborhoods in the Netherlands with good nutrition and sufficient vegetables.
Not profitable in the current state
That the bankruptcy trustee after two months comes to the conclusion that a revival is not profitable, does not surprise him. "This should not come as a surprise. In fact everyone already knew that it was not a profitable project, which is also apparent from the bankruptcy report, which states that loss was incurred from day one."
The bankruptcy was declared just before the summer. In order to make his plan feasible, Baan is now in discussion with various parties. "There are several players who have an interest in better health for the surrounding neighborhoods in The Hague. So we are talking to insurers, ministries and also to the municipality."
A stumbling block is the current price per square meter. "That price is high. Even the best tomato growers cannot cultivate profitably with such a rental price. Also the commercial urban greenhouse has stumbled over it. I am not keen on that at all. A health center is my dream, I would like to share my vision, but not at any price."
Publication date : 9/18/2018
Merida Capital Funds VividGro
August 17, 2018
By Iris Dorbian - NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)
VividGro, a spin-out from Lighting Science Group Corporation, which is backed by Pegasus Capital Advisors, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding. The investors are Merida Capital and LSG. Based in West Warwick, Rhode Island, VividGro is a provider of controlled environment agriculture LED lighting solutions and services for the indoor horticultural and cannabis industries.
VividGro, LLC, a portfolio company of private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors (Pegasus), today announced it has tapped investment firm Merida Capital Partners (Merida) as its strategic partner. VividGro, a spinout from Pegasus-funded Lighting Science Group Corporation (LSG), offers products based on LSG’s origins in developing lighting for NASA and the International Space Station and currently focuses on distributing controlled environment agriculture (CEA) LED lighting solutions and services to the indoor horticultural and cannabis industries.
The Company will initially be funded by investments from LSG and Merida Capital. Merida Managing Partner Mitchell Baruchowitz will join the VividGro Board and work with VividGro CEO David Friedman, former CEO of MJIC, as well as Board Chairman and Pegasus Operating Advisor Abraham Morris, to aggressively grow VividGro, including through acquisition of innovative CEA technology and service providers.
VividGro CEO David Friedman commented, “With the rapid growth of indoor cultivation in both the indoor horticultural and cannabis industries, the need for energy efficient and ‘smart’ lighting products has multiplied. We are excited to partner with leading cannabis investor Merida Capital, and their sophisticated portfolio of ancillary companies, to help drive VividGro’s strategy of creating a world-class suite of CEA technologies and services.”
Mitchell Baruchowitz, Managing Partner of Merida, remarked, “Merida is humbled by the opportunity to partner with a seasoned investment firm such as Pegasus and top technology provider, VividGro, which has a great management team in David Friedman and Abe Morris, to execute on our shared vision of creating a connected ecosystem of leading companies to drive the indoor horticultural and cannabis industries forward.”
Addressing the partnership with Merida, Joel Haney, a Principal at Pegasus said: “With its focus on responsible investing and governance, Merida is the perfect partner for Pegasus to rely on to assist VividGro in navigating the emerging investment landscape in its core areas of growth.”
About VividGro
VividGro is a pioneer in the AgTech space. Tailored to the automation and efficiency needs of the indoor agriculture and horticultural markets, VividGro implements solutions that help growers maximize yields and reduce costs. Our state-of-the-art VividGro lighting product line delivers optimized PAR to maximize plant growth and PAR efficacy. VividGro distinguishes itself from its industry peers by helping growers learn how to use their resources more efficiently. It is not the lights you use it is how you use them.
Learn more about VividGro at www.VividGro.com and join us on social media at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
About Merida Capital Partners
Merida Capital Partners is a private equity fund targeting fundamental growth drivers which accelerate the rapid development of the cannabis industry. Our motto is Responsible Investing in the Emerging Cannabis Industry. For more information, please visit www.meridacap.com or follow us on Twitter @meridacap.
About Pegasus Capital Advisors, L.P.
Pegasus Capital Advisors, L.P. is a private equity firm founded and led by Craig Cogut. Since inception in 1996, Pegasus has invested across five private equity funds and currently manages approximately $1.9 billion in assets. The Firm invests in companies within the sustainability and wellness sectors that are seeking strategic growth capital.
Efficiency Not Size Matters In Vertical Farming
Several VF professionals have recently warned against exaggerated claims in the industry. I much agree with these warnings because exaggerated claims can have a negative impact on the industry if they are not backed by reality.
September 20, 2018
Vertical Farming Expert
Several VF professionals have recently warned against exaggerated claims in the industry. I much agree with these warnings because exaggerated claims can have a negative impact on the industry if they are not backed by reality.
I would like to add another point to the debate. In the past years, VF companies have competed in an attempt to claim the largest vertical farm in the world. This is a dangerous trend. Vertical farms must first and foremost be efficient.
They must be able to make profit. Lately, Crop One and Emirates has announced a project to build a vertical farm in Dubai with daily capacity of 6.000 pounds. The price - $40 million! In comparison, our vertical farm in Shenzhen, China with roughly same capacity was less than $15 million.
I have made feasibility studies of VF projects in Asia, Europe, and Africa and against this background I worry the project in Dubai will not make profit anytime soon because of the extremely high capital expenditure. Therefore, I urge VF professionals to be careful.
Do not get caught up by the race to build the largest vertical farm. Have a strict focus on costs. These large headline projects must be successful and profitable; otherwise investors will run away from the industry.
Your Local Greens Lands $500,000 From 20 Investors
Sprouts at Your Local Greens
by Ryan Herron, North Carolina Business News Wire — September 7, 2018.
BURLINGTON — Your Local Greens Partners Inc. has raised $500,000 from 20 investors, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Burlington-based company filed a Form D to report the offering but declined to disclose what the funds would be used for.
The initial $600,000 offering by the organic farming company was comprised of a combination of debt and equity and has a duration of less than one year. It still hopes to raise an additional $100,000.
The company was founded by its current chief executive officer, Douglas Calaway, in 2015.
Your Local Greens establishes local indoor controlled environments to grow its crops. By doing so, it is able to increase the yield of its crops while using fewer natural resources to produce pesticide-free greens.
It is in the process of developing a hydroponic vertical farming building in the Raleigh-Durham area.
A hydroponic farm uses water to grow plants indoors, which allow it to grow crops at all times of the year. While a vertical farm grows plants in vertically stacked layers to maximize the use of space in an indoor farming facility.
“Live Better Than Organic”
Indoor-Farming Tech Is Growing On Investors
TYLER HAMILTON
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
fin AUGUST 15, 2018
Tyler Hamilton works with cleantech companies from across Canada as an adviser with the non-profit MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.
There’s plenty of buzz around the coming legalization of cannabis, but behind all the smoke, another type of grow-op is catching the attention of investors and budding entrepreneurs.
Indoor farming is taking root in Canada and around the world – in homes and businesses, cities and remote communities, in bone-dry deserts and in the frigidness of the Arctic Circle.
These aren’t just greenhouses. Most of the growth has been around a subcategory called vertical farming, which involves the cultivation of leafy greens and other produce using surfaces that are vertically stacked or vertically inclined. Often, the plants are grown without soil and in climate-controlled environments. Almost always, they use LED lighting systems to allow for precision, year-round growing, an approach pioneered by NASA in the 1980s for long-duration space travel.
An employee inspects a wall of kale and greens growing vertically inside a modular farming unit at Modular Farms Co. headquarters in Brampton, Ont., on Aug. 11, 2017. JAMES MACDONALD / BLOOMBERG
Leaders in the market include Canada’s Modular Farms, based in Toronto, and Nova Scotia’s TruLeaf, which are joined by competitors across the United States and Europe, including names such as Plenty, Infarms, AeroFarms, Oasis Biotech and Bowery Farms. As a group, they attracted $350-million in venture capital last year, a big increase over 2016.
Some harsh realities are driving investment. Rising world population means more mouths to feed, while the availability of arable land isn’t just capped, it’s shrinking. shrinking as a result of development and changing climate patterns. Vertical indoor farming allows nutritious food to be grown where it’s needed, regardless of land availability or climate. It also reduces, sometimes dramatically, the amount of water and energy that goes into agriculture production.
“Every hectare under vertical farming can potentially substitute nine hectares of conventional outdoor farmlands, and save up to 200 tonnes of water every day,” according to market-intelligence firm Frost & Sullivan.
Frost calculated that about 22,000 vertical farming patents were filed globally between 2014 and 2016 alone. Allied Market Research, another research firm, estimates the market will grow at a compound annual rate of 23.6 percent, to US$6.4-billion by 2023 from US$1.5-billion in 2016.
“A new container-farm company still probably pops up every month, but this is about more than just growing heads of lettuce,” says Aaron Spiro, president of Modular Farms, founded three years ago out of frustration with vertical indoor farming systems that overpromise and underdeliver.
He says anyone can grow herbs and leafy greens indoors. “But if the goal is to get the highest quality and yield, and be flexible enough to grow everything from kale and quinoa to raspberries and tomatoes, then achieving the perfect balance of temperature, air flow, water, light and nutrients is crucial.”
A tour of a Modular Farms system in an industrial parking lot in east Toronto demonstrates just how far vertical farming has come. Roughly the dimensions of a shipping container, the company’s core farming module is heavily insulated and designed with its own automated heating, air-conditioning and humidity-control systems.
Inside, two evenly divided rows accommodate four growing walls, each lit up by a retractable LED curtain emitting a spectrum of purple-hued light that’s ideal for growing. The walls themselves are lined with 240 vertical growing towers capable of supporting more than 3,500 plants at the same time.
No soil is used. Instead, seedlings take root inside grow plugs made of moss. Once the seedlings grow large enough, they are transplanted into a fibrous material housed within each tower. An automated closed-loop drip system makes sure the roots get just the right amount of nutrient-spiked water.
All key operations can be remotely monitored and its spacious layout makes for easy maintenance and harvesting. The company says this design allows a range of plants to be grown using 95 per cent less water and up to 30 per cent less energy than an outdoor soil-based farm with similar yields.
Time will tell if the system delivers as promised, but after only a year on the market more than 15 of these container farms have been sold with dozens more in the sales pipeline.
“We’ve been getting so much interest from people we never thought we’d be selling to initially,” Mr. Spiro says, explaining that urban and remote communities alike are drawn to the idea of growing their own food year round. Schools, mining and logging operations, commercial caterers and food distributors are among the customers Modular Farms is now targeting.
In September, for example, the company will deliver one of its farms to Dene High School in La Loche, Sask. The student-run farm will grow vegetables and fruit to support the school’s lunch program, and will double as a classroom where students can learn about biology, nutrition and entrepreneurship.
Over time, as more operational data is collected on different plant species, the company’s farms are expected to get smarter and more self-sufficient by incorporating advanced robotics, machine vision and artificial intelligence. Want to grow strawberries? Just press “strawberry” mode and the farm will make sure temperature, humidity, nutrients and lighting are balanced just right. Is tower five in Aisle 2 underperforming? A text alerts you and recommends corrective action.
Modular Farms is also taking a more holistic approach to its farms, developing a variety of connectible, plug-and-play modules with different capabilities and climate settings, including air-tight vestibules that allow seamless movement between modules – similar to the way the International Space Station is designed. One module, for example, would generate its own power using solar panels, while another would extract and store water from the outside air.
“It’s about pushing the boundaries of what and where people think it’s possible to grow,” Mr. Spiro says.
And yes, he adds wryly, growing cannabis is an option.
AgFunder Closes First In Series Of Food & Ag Tech Funds Enabled By AI
Online venture capital platform AgFunder, which builds its own technology and A.I. to support its investment team, has raised a $2.25 million fund from the AgFunder community to invest in transformational food and agriculture startups (click here to signup for early access to invest in the next fund). The fund, which will co-invest alongside AgFunder, closed at the end of March, one month after opening to AgFunder’s global network. The fund has already made five investments.
Nearly 40 accredited and institutional investors contributed to the fund including personal investments by senior and C-level executives at some of the major food and agriculture companies who have been following AgFunder for years. Other individual investors include Jason Camm, Chief Medical Officer of Peter Thiel’s family office Thiel Capital.
Institutional investors include SYSTEMIQ, an advisory and investment firm dedicated to the creation of sustainable economic systems in energy, materials, and land use; impact investment fund C9 Capital; and a major US grain merchant.
“We are investing in AgFunder’s Co-Investment Fund due to the quality of deal flow and their expertise in global agtech. We have already begun working closely with the team and hope to contribute to the fund’s future success,” said Ryan Gralia from SYSTEMIQ.
The co-investment fund will invest alongside AgFunder’s own internal fund that counts AgFunder’s founders, investors, advisors, and leading agrifood tech entrepreneurs including Sid Gorham who sold Granular to DuPont (Now Corteva) last year for $300m, Rob Saik who sold Agri-Trend to Trimble, ex-Portfolio Managers of Cargill’s BlackRiver, and Kip Tom who was recently appointed U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. for Food and Ag.
AgFunder will be launching its next co-investment fund in the fall.
“You shouldn’t have to be a Silicon Valley VC to access to some of the best investment opportunities transforming our agrifood tech system. By giving our global network of accredited and institutional investors an opportunity to invest alongside us through these co-investment funds we open the agrifood tech sector to a wider global audience of investors and add value through an engaged ecosystem,” said Rob Leclerc, CEO of AgFunder. “We’ve always believed that the smartest, most value-add investors for the industry are successful entrepreneurs and food and ag professionals. This is an opportunity to tap into that talent pool and it gives us an incredibly smart and dialed-in scout and mentor network.”
The co-investment fund will invest alongside the internal fund in the next 10-12 startups that AgFunder invests in, operating across the value chain, from farm to fork. AgFunder is targeting startups at seed to Series B stage.
The co-investment fund’s first publicly announced portfolio company is Connecterra, the AI-powered dairy technology startup, which we announced in May. The fund has made another four investments in food tech, ag genomics, and remote sensing, all of which will be announced in due course.
AgFunder’s unique model allows it to tap into its global network of over 50,000 members and subscribers to source opportunities, assist with due diligence, and facilitate business development for its portfolio companies. AgFunder’s software engineers are also developing a range of technologies utilizing artificial intelligence to help identify new opportunities, speed up due diligence, analyze markets, and provide support for its portfolio companies.
“We believe that there is an enormous opportunity investing in early-stage companies that are developing digital and deep technology solutions for the many problems inherent across the food system. Our global platform and AI-enabled data engine allow us to compare technologies across multiple geographies, informing our investment decision-making process, and ultimately deliver superior returns for our fund investors,” said AgFunder CIO, Michael Dean.
“The days of VC as a lifestyle business are over, and in 10-years Limited Partners will be asking VCs how many engineers they have on their team,” added Rob Leclerc. “It’s not enough anymore to rely on brains, referrals, chance encounters or one’s ‘Rolodex’. This industry is moving too fast and so to drive superior returns we knew we needed a technology edge to help source, diligence, and support our companies. Ultimately we’re running AgFunder like a startup by building technology in-house to do VC smarter.”
Signup here for early access to invest in the next co-investment fund.
AgFunder Closes First in Series of AI-Enabled Food & Ag Tech Funds
AgFunder Closes First in Series of AI-Enabled Food & Ag Tech Funds
Online venture capital platform AgFunder has raised a $2.25 million fund to invest in transformational food and agriculture startups. The fund, which will co-invest alongside AgFunder, closed at the end of March, one month after opening to AgFunder’s global network, and has already made four investments.
Nearly 40 accredited and institutional investors contributed to the fund including personal investments by senior and C-level executives at some of the major food and agriculture companies who have been following AgFunder for years. Other individual investors include Jason Camm, chief medical officer of Peter Thiel’s family office Thiel Capital.
Institutional investors include SYSTEMIQ, an advisory and investment firm dedicated to the creation of sustainable economic systems in energy, materials, and land use; impact investment fund C9 Capital; and a major US grain merchant.
“We are investing in AgFunder’s Co-Investment Fund due to the quality of deal flow and their expertise in global agtech. We have already begun working closely with the team and hope to contribute to the fund’s future success,” said Ryan Gralia from SYSTEMIQ.
The co-investment fund will invest alongside AgFunder’s own internal fund that counts AgFunder’s founders, investors, advisors, and leading agrifood tech entrepreneurs as investors.
AgFunder will be launching a new co-investment fund in the fall.
“Our decision to launch a series of co-investment funds with our global network is in line with our mission to open the agrifood tech sector to a wider audience of investors, bringing in much-needed capital,” said Rob Leclerc, CEO of AgFunder. “We have always believed that the smartest, most value-add investors for the industry are successful entrepreneurs and food and ag professionals. This also gives us an incredibly smart and dialed-in scout network.”
The co-investment fund will invest alongside the internal fund in the next 10-12 startups AgFunder invests in, operating across the value chain, from farm to fork. AgFunder is targeting startups at seed to Series B stage.
The co-investment fund’s first publicly announced portfolio company is Connecterra, the AI-powered dairy technology startup, which we announced in May. The fund has made another three investments in food tech, ag genomics, and remote sensing, all of which will be announced in due course.
AgFunder’s unique model allows it to tap into its global network of over 50,000 members and subscribers to source opportunities, assist with due diligence, and facilitate business development for its portfolio companies. AgFunder’s software engineers are also developing a range of technologies utilizing artificial intelligence that will help identify new opportunities and provide support for its portfolio companies.
“We believe that there is an enormous opportunity investing in early-stage companies that are developing digital and deep technology solutions for the many problems inherent across the food system. Our global platform and AI-enabled data engine allow us to compare technologies across multiple geographies, informing our investment decision-making process, and ultimately will deliver superior returns for our fund investors,” said AgFunder CIO, Michael Dean.
If you’d like early access to the next fund, you can sign up here.
"Middle East Is An Ideal Market For Vertical Farming"
John Breedveld, GrowGroup IFS:
"Middle East Is An Ideal Market For Vertical Farming"
"We may soon bring along a pot of orange paint", jokes John Breedveld of project developer GrowGroup IFS about the vertical farm that will soon be erected in the desert near Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates. It is expected that from May 2019, vegetables and herbs for the local market will grow in vertically stacked layers. And with a lot of Dutch input: "It is a truly Dutch quality product with Dutch technology, Dutch parties that take care of the construction and Dutch management that can monitor cultivation remotely 24-7."
But why exactly in the Middle East? John: "Vertical farming is now a tried and tested concept, but the costs are still relatively high. Also the costs for the products that you grow are automatically higher. In the Middle East, a simple head of lettuce is already very expensive, so that makes the price that has to be paid for products from vertical farming more easily acceptable. We emphatically position our products as 'quality of Holland, locally grown' and there is much demand for this in the Middle East."
Extreme climates
The project developers for vertical farming mainly look for countries with extreme climates. John: "In the Middle East it is too hot to cultivate for eight months of the year and so the prices for products are quite high. This is interesting information for investors, because this results in the costs of a factory being earned back quickly."
At the moment, there are 16 enquiries at GrowGroup IFS from all over the world. Another region with also a lot of interest in vertical farming is China. John: "In that country they actually have similar problems to the Arabian peninsula and in the desert. During the winter months with Siberian conditions, fresh vegetables have to travel three thousand kilometers over land, which will increase the costs for fresh vegetables in winter substantially."
Factory
Vertical farming has a lot in common with greenhouse horticulture, yet John speaks of a 'factory'. "Cultivation is completely without daylight. And the complete post-harvesting process of cutting, washing and packaging can be started on location immediately after the harvest. This makes the products 'ready to eat'." Another difference is the role of investors. They are much more present than in greenhouse horticulture. "Vertical farming attracts parties other than just traditional growers. We are constantly looking for new investors, both equity (venture capital in exchange for shares) and debt (secured loan)."
Niche market
Large-scale application of vertical farming in the Netherlands is not yet going to happen according to John. "Because of the high costs in the Netherlands, vertical farming is now only profitable for niche products at the top of the market. Before vertical farming can really be used commercially on a large scale in the Netherlands, something needs to be done with the costs first. Those costs have to come down and I also expect price corrosion to occur. It is only when products from vertical farming are comparable in price to regular products that the consumer will also buy these products. Because the consumer will often ignore the more expensive products on the shelves."
For more information:
GrowGroup IFS B.V.
www.growgroupifs.com
info@growgroupifs.com
John Breedveld
john.breedveld@growgroupifs.com
+31 (0)85 -7500 265
Publication date: 7/20/2018
Hoping To Make Green, Investors Look To Vertical Farms
Hoping To Make Green, Investors Look To Vertical Farms
AUTHOR Cathy Siegner
June 29, 2018
- Dive Brief:
BrightFarms, the high-tech greenhouse operator that supplies produce to a range of retailers, raised $55 million in Series D financing in a round led by Cox Enterprises.
The produce grower and distributor said it plans to use the money to expand its network of greenhouse farms beyond its current facilities in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Illinois. A new one is opening this summer in Ohio. BrightFarms, which launched in 2011, provides packaged salad greens to retailers such as Walmart, Kroger and Ahold Delhaize.
Separately, Brooklyn, New York-based Gotham Greens announced it raised $29 million in a Series C financing round led by existing investors. The company, founded in 2008, said it will expand its footprint, add employees, widen distribution and enhance its R&D capabilities. Gotham Greens currently owns and operates four hydroponic crop production facilities in New York and Chicago, with more under development.
Dive Insight:
Investors are drawn to hydroponic growing operations like BrightFarms and Gotham Greens because they can supply retailers year-round with locally produced items grown in efficient and sustainable ways. As BrightFarms has noted, the model enables the company to quickly and efficiently eliminate time, distance and costs from the food supply chain.
Besides profitability and sustainability, indoor farming brings other on-trend assets. Shoppers increasingly want to know where their food comes from, and they are aware of the risk of E. coli and other contamination — such as the recent outbreak linked to romaine lettuce grown in fields. Locally grown produce from indoor greenhouses can go a long way toward responding to both of those concerns. Another key factor behind its success is that consumers are often willing to pay more for it.
Vertical farming, as the field is often called, has been a money pit for startups, which have struggled with high energy and labor costs and shaky go-to-market strategies. Companies are improving the science and their business models, enabling operations such as BrightFarms and Gotham Greens to become significant suppliers in the high-growth fresh produce space. These latest investments represent another vote of confidence for the growing field.
Success breeds competition, and these two firms are far from only ones out there. Dallas-based Eden Green Technology now supplies produce to Walmart stores, while Plenty, based in San Francisco, has ambitious plans to expand across the country. Many other startups are growing with an eye on high-density metropolitan markets.
As indoor greenhouse firms further develop, they are likely to add to their current lineup of salad greens, tomatoes, herbs and other fresh items. This will enable retailers that are already expanding their fruit and vegetable offerings to meet consumer demand by enhancing their locally grown produce selection. They also will be able to offer more branded produce items, which are a growing segment. According to Nielsen, the dollar share of branded produce jumped 7.7% from 2012 to 2016 and comprised 38.5% of total produce sales.
It's hard to see any downside for retailers arranging for indoor greenhouses to supply them with fresher, locally grown and branded produce as long as the costs are reasonable and the quality stays high. Featuring them could draw new customers and bolster loyalty among existing ones eager for innovative takes on fresh produce.
Recommended Reading:
- The Wall Street Journal
- BrightFarms Raises $55 Million in New Funding Round
- PR Newswire
- Gotham Greens Raises $29 Million In Growth Equity Funding
"Vertical Farming Is Difficult In The Netherlands"
Urban Farmers bankruptcy
"Vertical Farming Is Difficult In The Netherlands"
A lot of attention for the bankruptcy of Urban Farmers in the Netherlands yesterday. The company grew vegetables and fish in a Dutch rooftop farm. From the start, the project was met scepticism and the bankruptcy generated a lot of reactions. Is there room for Urban Farming in Europe?
The greenhouse and the company
Clarification first: UF de Schilde that was declared bankrupt last Tuesday is the company located in the building "The New Farm" in The Hague. The building itself, including the greenhouse on top, is owned by another company. UF de Schilde acted as a tenant. The company grew and sold vegetables and provided guided tours on the sixth floor of the building and, of course, the rooftop farm.
According to Reinier Donkersloot with Consult2Grow, there's definitely opportunities for this rooftop farm. Via Consult2Grow he's connected to The New Farm, the company developing the complete development of the building following a concept focusing on food production, circularity and sustainability. "First and foremost: vertical farming in the Netherlands is hard. Unless you can reach a niche market, you obviously do not need local production. On top the cultivation is suboptimal and your greenhouse is 5-8 times more expensive than in the Westland, only a couple of kilometers nearby", he states.
Nevertheless, there are certainly opportunities for the concept. "The current bankruptcy follows a longer process. The choice of crop could mean a difference. Growing trout or pike-perch instead of the relatively cheap tilapia, and growing strawberries or blueberries instead of tomatoes and cucumber that are being grown around the corner. Even though it might still be challenging, you're offering a different experience and a product that can be marketed as a specialty."
Together with the curator alternatives like these are being investigated. "For now it is important to take care of the fish and to maintain as many jobs as possible with a new concept. A farm for experience and education, catering and events for example." It is hoped the new concept can be shown in short term.
Hospitality
The bankruptcy follows the bankruptcy of the Swiss mother company UrbanFarmers AG back in May. Earlier this year, CEO Roman Gaus spoke about the difficulties in vertical farming with a Swiss magazine. "In Switzerland there's not enough differentiation with the normal farms. All growers are urban farmers here", he explained. By then 2/3 of the company was working in the Dutch farm. Roman explained how 50% of the revenue came from hospitality: guided tours and catering for example.
Is it possible?
Critics of vertical farming can reload their bullets with the bankruptcy of UF de Schilde - but only 60 kilometers away currently the Amsterdam vertical farm GrowX is expanding. “But I can imagine the difficulty it must be to grow tomatoes and fruiting crops in an urban farm next to a global leader in tomato production, known as Westland. It is hard to compete in westland prices and price matters”, says John Apesos of GrowX.
He explains how vertical farming differs from urban growing in rooftop greenhouses. "While Urban Farmers in The Hague grew all kinds of vegetables & fruiting crops, indoor vertical farming usually focuses on producing high value leafy greens inside of warehouses near city centers."
“I think Urban Farmers still fought a good fight on behalf of city citizens who are demanding a new fresh food system. In the United States Gotham Greens is a great example of a success story in rooftop greenhouse farming. Regardless of the failures or successes of any one urban agriculture project, the demand of food production in the urban future is real”, John states. “The Netherlands has everything to win, by learning from failures and continuing to build pioneering projects in urban agriculture. The Dutch economy has a lot of experience of pioneering new food production methods. The strength of the Dutch horticulture eco-system can change the world via bravery in the face of challenges and continuing to build new production systems to export to hungry cities in the Americas, Africa & Asia.”
Restart?
The trustee currently was unable to comment but states in a press release the standard course after a bankruptcy: a restart is examined.
Publication date: 7/5/2018
Can Vertical Farms Reap Their Harvest? It’s Anyone’s Bet
Indoor-grown produce is available in more than 20 supermarket chains nationwide. But despite massive investment, questions remain about efficiency and costs.
Can Vertical Farms Reap Their Harvest? It’s Anyone’s Bet
Indoor-grown produce is available in more than 20 supermarket chains nationwide. But despite massive investment, questions remain about efficiency and costs.
BY STEVE HOLT | FARMING, Technology, Urban Agriculture
07.02.18
By now, the images of shelves full of perfect greens in hulking warehouses, stacked floor to ceiling in sterile environs and illuminated by high-powered LED lights, have become familiar. Food futurists and industry leaders say these high-tech vertical farming operations are the future of agriculture—able to operate anywhere, virtually invincible against pests, pathogens, and poor weather, and producing local, fresh, high-quality, lower-carbon food year-round.
That future seemed one step closer to reality last year when San Francisco-based indoor farming startup Plenty, which grows a variety of salad and leafy greens hydroponically (without soil) and uses artificial lighting in facilities in three locations, announced that it had raised a whopping $200 million in funding from the SoftBank Vision Fund, whose investors include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Flush with cash, Plenty quickly opened a 100,000-square-foot indoor farm outside Seattle that promised to produce 4.5 million pounds of greens annually—including some varieties not yet grown for the masses at scale, such as hydroponic peaches, carrots, and watermelon. To Plenty’s leadership and many observers, the cash influx signaled the economic promise of growing food indoors without sunlight and with less soil and water than field farming.
Photo courtesy of Plenty.
“My reaction [to the $200 million round] was both that of validation, excitement,” said Matt Barnard, Plenty’s co-founder, and CEO, over a manner of farming he says yields 350 times the produce per acre on one percent of the water used by dirt farming. “Now we must move with speed and efficiency if we’re to accomplish our mission of bringing people worldwide an experience that’s healthier for them and the planet.”
Not everyone is in agreement.
“My first thought was, ‘we could build a lot of greenhouses for $200 million,’” recalls Neil Mattson, a professor of plant science at Cornell and one of the country’s leading academic voices on indoor agriculture, who’s found that high-tech greenhouses that harness sunlight are more cost- and carbon-friendly than vertical farms that use artificial light.
Most vertical farmers are only hoping to claim a percentage of the conventional produce market, not replace it. To these founders and their investors, the market for lettuce and greens, especially—grown primarily in California and Arizona and shipped worldwide—is ripe for disruption. E. colioutbreaks like the one that hit Arizona-grown romaine lettuce earlier this year, killing a handful of people and sickening hundreds, only further their case.
But behind futurists’ fervent predictions about indoor agriculture, claims about product quality, and sexy technology lies a reality known by industry insiders but too often missing from media coverage: The future success of this nascent industry is still very much an open question.
The astronomical capital costs associated with starting a large hydroponic farm (compared to field and greenhouse farming), its reliance on investor capital and yet-to-be-developed technology, and challenges around energy efficiency and environmental impact make vertical farming anything but a sure bet. And even if vertical farms do scale, there’s no clear sense of whether brand-loyal consumers, en masse, will make the switch from field-grown produce to foods grown indoors.
Tricky Economics
Walking into any supermarket will reveal a small mountain of salad greens, carrying a price tag of between $9 and $12 per pound. They may be locally grown or organic, which will add $0.50 or $1 to the price tag. Meanwhile, a 4.5-ounce carton of Massachusetts-based FreshBox Farms’ spring mix—grown in the company’s hydroponic farm in Massachusetts—costs $3.99 for a 4-ounce box or $15.96 per pound. Or kale: the conventional variety will run you $1.33 per pound at Walmart; organic kale costs around $4.99 per pound at Whole Foods; and vertically farmed kale grown at Newark, New Jersey-based AeroFarms will cost you a whopping $14.18 per pound.
That dramatic price gap is due to the millions of dollars currently needed to build one large indoor vertical farm—and that price is not going to drop until the industry scales up. Agritecture Consulting, whose clients include current and prospective indoor farms, estimates that a 30,000-square-foot vertical farm growing leafy greens and herbs in the tri-state area around New York City requires nearly $4 million in startup capital—not including labor.
They should know: In 2016, Agritecture built farm.one in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood, which supplies hydroponic greens and edible flowers to a number of the city’s top restaurants. Chefs have been quick to catch onto the value of consistent, year-round, locally grown produce.
A farm.one indoor farming operation. (Photo courtesy of farm.one.)
In 2016, AeroFarms, now considered an industry leader, spent $30 million on its flagship aeroponic farm in Newark. The majority of these costs lie in the equipment needed to grow greens without soil or sunlight—heating and cooling systems, ventilation, shading, environmental controls, and lights.
All of these costs add up to a hefty electricity bill: According to models compiled for Civil Eats by Agritecture, a 30,000-square-foot vertical farm in metro New York City should budget upwards of $216,000 annually for lighting and power, and another $120,000 on HVAC systems; costs will vary region to region depending on what each state charges for electricity.
Energy and equipment costs are, by far, the largest drivers of expenses that can bring the price of operating a vertical farm close to $27 per square foot. By contrast, Agritecture’s models show that the cost to run a 100,000-square-foot smart greenhouse is roughly a third as expensive, thanks to the use of natural sunlight and more advanced automation.
Vertical farms’ energy usage carries a significant carbon footprint. While vertical farm companies promise more-sustainable produce by growing it closer to consumers and using renewable energy to power their operations, the industry still has a long row to hoe.
Industry leaders acknowledge the energy challenges in the short term, yet tout continually improving lighting technology that has brought down costs. But Mattson, whose Cornell team studies the way plants respond to different lighting, predicts a plateau coming for improvements to LED technology.
LEDs lighting an indoor farming operation. (Photo courtesy of Agritecture.)
“The best LEDs are 40 percent more energy efficient than in 2014,” Mattson says. “There continue to be improvements; however, those improvements will start to slow down over time. There’s only a finite amount of light you can generate at a given wavelength, and in 2022, I’m not expecting new lights to be 40 percent more efficient than the current lights now.”
FreshBox Farms began shipping greens from its 40,000-square-foot hydroponic facility in Millis, Massachusetts, in 2015. The warehouse farm, located 30 miles outside of Boston, runs on a combination of renewable energy and non-renewables, and CFO Dave Vosburg admits his company is “not doing any better” than field-grown greens when it comes to carbon usage.
When it eventually expands outside of Massachusetts, Vosberg says that by introducing a cogeneration system—technology that recycles otherwise wasted heat into new energy—FreshBox Farms will eventually keep costs and carbon emissions down in expensive markets like Connecticut, where commercial users pay an average of more than 14 cents per kilowatt-hour. But Vosburg says the company’s priority is to use contextually appropriate renewable energy sources to power the farms, such as wind energy in the Midwest, hydro in the Northwest, and solar in the Southwest.
“Yes, it sounds crazy to take the sun and turn it into electricity and turn that electricity back into light. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s what we’ll be doing,” Vosburg says. “It’ll be really efficient and clean and create a better product, and it won’t have the same carbon impact that we’re having today.”
And energy isn’t even a vertical farm’s top ongoing expense. The companies Civil Eats spoke to say labor is actually their largest budget item. Vertical farms typically pay workers higher, more metropolitan pay rates than both dirt farms—many of which rely heavily on migrant labor—and the more automated smart greenhouses. The fast-food chain Wendy’s announced in June that it plans to source vine-ripened tomatoes exclusively from greenhouse farms by early 2019.
Moreover, no matter how automated the indoor growing system is, vertical farmers are discovering the constant need for a human eye—or several—on the process. In fact, some estimate that if indoor agriculture continues to grow at the pace it has in recent years, vertical farms will have to hire 100,000 workers over the next decade.
That continued growth is not a given, however. Because of the high cost to launch, operate, and scale up a vertical farming operation, the industry is highly leveraged, with each new farm requiring tens of millions of dollars in investor capital before it can grow a single plant. Between 2016 and 2017, investments in vertical farming skyrocketed 653 percent, from $36 million to $271 million. The lion’s share of that investment went to Plenty, but Newark-based AeroFarms has raised $80 million in recent years and Brooklyn’s Bowery Farming added another $27 million.
Sky Vegetables’ rooftop hydroponic farming operation in New York City. (Photo courtesy of Agritecture.)
Just last week, Manhattan-based BrightFarms announced it had raised $55 million. Shoppers can now find produce grown indoors by more than 23 large vertical farms in more than 20 supermarket chains in nearly every major metropolitan area in the country, according to Agritecture.
While industry leaders say scaling offers the best hope for profitability in this business, many vertical farms have encountered problems when they began planning to add additional production facilities. Before Atlanta-based PodPonics closed its doors in 2016, executives from the five-year-old hydroponic farm startup met with executives from supermarket chain Kroger.
Kroger indicated that it was ready to purchase 25 million pounds of produce from PodPonics annually if it would build the facilities to support that kind of production, founder Matt Liotta told a crowd at the 2017 Aglanta Conference. According to Liotta, who said PodPonics had lowered the cost to produce a pound of lettuce to $1.36, Whole Foods and Fresh Market also expressed interest in bringing PodPonics greens into their stores nationally.
“This was our wildest dream,” Liotta said. “Then we realized how much capital that was going to require, how many people we were going to have to hire. Every retailer told us the same thing: ‘We will buy it if you will build it.’ We realized we were incapable of building everything that they wanted.”
Unproven Demand for Food Grown Indoors
In early 2016, researchers from the University of Illinois-Urbana set out to determine whether consumers would spring for produce grown indoors. They asked a panel of 117 participants a series of questions about their perceptions of and willingness to pay for lettuce grown in fields, greenhouses, and in vertical farms. While vertical farming ranked fairly high in terms of produce quality and safety, the tech-heavy production method was rated less “natural” than both field farming and greenhouse and ranked last in participants’ willingness to purchase it.
For the vertical agriculture industry to eat into the profits of field-grown products—a roughly $140 billion industry—Agritecture Consulting founder and managing director Henry Gordon-Smith says it will first need to prove consumers are demanding produce grown indoors. He points out that because of a lack of demand, many vertical farming operations are not yet at full production year-round—despite touting the 12-month growing season as a main benefit of the industry.
His sense is that indoor farms that have achieved the sales to produce continually—such as Gotham Greens has with its New York City greenhouses, for example—have a customer base that’s responding to strong “local” branding rather than the technology behind the food. That may include vertical farms selling their produce using the USDA Certified Organic label, which the National Organic Board reaffirmed in January, much to the dismay of many organic dirt farmers.
“I think the automation and economics are all improving,” Gordon-Smith says, adding that the question of “whether consumers are going to pay more or whether the products coming out of vertical farms are going to align with their values” is still an open question.
But while many of the East Coast vertical farms built their business models around replacing greens being shipped cross-country from California and Arizona, Matt Barnard of Plenty hopes to add to the global population consuming fresh produce. A 2015 report found that where USDA guidelines suggest each of us in the U.S. should eat up to three cups of vegetables daily, current U.S. production is only providing enough for 1.7 cups per person. Barnard extends that supply gap to the rest of the world, especially the Middle East and Asia, where a lack of water and high pollution have hampered agriculture.
Plenty CEO Matt Barnard. (Photo courtesy of Plenty.)
“We believe the industry will be five times larger when there is supply to meet the demand,” Barnard says. “With the field unable to deliver consistent supply, new forms of agricultural capacity like Plenty must be added to the global food system.”
But as vertical farming companies like Plenty go city by city attempting to dominate local markets, it may be that small farmers get hurt the most. Barnard drew the ire of Washington State dirt farmers last year when he told GeekWire that Plenty expanded to Seattle, in part, because it was the West Coast’s “best example of a large community of people who really don’t have much access to any fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally.”
Not so, according to Sofia Gidlund, Farm Programs Manager at Tilth Alliance, which advocates for and supports local agriculture systems in Greater Seattle.
“We work with many hardworking local farmers who supply Seattle with high-quality, delicious, and nutritious food while caring deeply for our land. These farmers use sustainable farming practices, nurse the soil, create beautiful open green space and provide wildlife habitat,” says Gidlund, who adds that she does not speak for all area farmers on the issue of vertical farming. “Many consumers in Seattle choose to support local farmers, both urban or rural, because of this deep connection to the land. Providing that support is a point of pride for many Seattleites.”
Actual Data Is Coming
Peer-reviewed research into the business of vertical farming has been sparse, partly because the industry is so new. That’s set to change, however, when Mattson and a team of researchers at Cornell University finish a comprehensive study into the viability of this approach.
A three-year, $2.4 million research grant, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and kicked off in January, will compare the vertical farming industry to field agriculture in a slew of categories, including energy, carbon, and water footprints, profitability, workforce development, and scalability. The study will include one of the first nutritional analyses of food grown indoors, as well as comparing the price-per-pound to deliver strawberries, lettuce, and tomatoes grown vertically and outdoors to five U.S. metropolitan areas: New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.
A 2016 study conducted by a few of Mattson’s colleagues at Cornell found that the energy consumption and carbon footprint associated with a vertical farm (the study calls it a “plant factory”) is significantly higher than that of a greenhouse. Vertical farming leaders counter that they use significantly less water than field farms, are more space-efficient, and do not produce emissions from trucking produce across the country. Mattson says these factors were not considered in Cornell’s previous research but will be included in the current grant.
“[Vertical farming] is not a fad,” says Mattson, who wants to use data to help the industry become more sustainable over time. “I’m not sure to what degree it’s going to scale up, but this is happening. So we need to understand the economic and environmental implications—both the good and the bad.”
BrightFarms Doubles Funding with $55m Series D
BrightFarms Doubles Funding with $55m Series D
BrightFarms, the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, has raised a $55 million Series D round, bringing the greenhouse grower’s total funding to more than $100 million.
BrightFarms grows salad greens and herbs in hydroponic greenhouses in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio. The new funds will largely go toward building more greenhouse facilities and expanding the company’s geographical footprint. A new farm in Ohio will open this summer, followed by a Texas facility in early 2019, according to a statement.
This latest round was led by communications, media, and automotive services companyCox Enterprises, with existing investors Catalyst Investors, WP Global Partners and NGEN Partners also participating.
Like other indoor farming operations, BrightFarms produces locally-grown fresh food to densely populated urban communities. But, BrightFarms has historically been more focused on business model innovation that technological innovation, especially compared to its set of high-tech indoor competitors like AeroFarms, Bowery, and Plenty. BrightFarmsCEO Paul Lightfoot said at the recent Indoor AgTech Summit in Brooklyn, NY, that using sunlight is a more sustainable choice than artificial light (as vertical, warehouse farms do).
Though Bright Farms’ funding hasn’t quite caught up to its higher raising counterparts in AeroFarms and Plenty, the company appears to be the closest US venture-backed CEA startup to being a national brand. The Texas farm will also bring BrightFarms closer to the center of salad green agriculture in the US, Salinas, CA and Yuma, Arizona.
“We have always competed directly with West Coast field grown products at the shelf. When we enter new retailers, we are replacing the shelf space of West Coast distributors. Our program drives incremental category growth while attracting our retailers’ most valuable consumers. We will deliver that growth in Texas and throughout the US as we expand. This is a huge category and we are just getting started,” Lightfoot told AgFunderNews.
It has made this progress by insisting on forward purchase agreements with clients, meaning retailers must commit to purchasing a certain quality of BrightFarms product over a period of time in order to sell it at all, which is not usual practice for most retailers, especially when buying produce.
“Our [forward purchasing] model has enabled deep and meaningful partnerships with retailers. We will continue to leverage that model as we scale,” Lightfoot said.
Neal Parikh, former vice president of finance at BrightFarms told AgFunderNews in 2016 that the upfront legal costs of drafting these contracts and convincing supermarket retailers to deviate from their usual buying patterns can prove difficult, especially when it comes to securing a long-term purchasing commitment. But, CEA means that prices and supply should be consistent and BrightFarms was able to convince some of grocery’s largest players. Current clients include Kroger, Wegmans, Walmart, ShopRite, and Jet.com among others.
Lead investor Cox Enterprises is a 120-year-old company with $18 billion in revenue. The company launched a national sustainability initiative in 2007 and has since invested more than $100 million toward environmental goals, according to a statement. The company is also an investor in FarmCrowdy, a digital agriculture platform focused on connecting farm sponsors with real farmers, based in Nigeria.
Cox Enterprise’s David Blau, vice president of strategy & corporate development and Lacey Lewis, senior vice president of finance, have joined the BrightFarms board of directors.
Indoor Urban Agriculture Is Growing Up Thanks to These Cities
At this point, the benefits of indoor urban farming are common knowledge: fresher food, fewer transportation emissions, and less spoilage thanks to shorter transit distances.
NYC’s Gotham Greens highlighted those and other benefits this week with the announcement that it had closed a $29 million Series C equity funding round led by Silverman Group and Creadiv. This latest round brings the company’s total funding to $45 million and will help them “finance the expansion trajectory,” which covers 500,000 square feet currently under development in five different states.
Gotham is one of several major success stories for NYC-based urban indoor farming companies, many of which we’ve covered extensively at The Spoon. But the Big Apple’s not the only city making indoor urban farming widely available and, in the process, changing the way we think about farming.
In fact, today marks the opening of the Farm on Ogden in Chicago, a massive facility and project aimed at providing fresh, local food to an undernourished (literally and figuratively) part of the Windy City.
With those two pieces of news in mind, here’s a brief look at a few other cities and companies where the indoor farming movement is thriving:
The Farm on Ogden
Chicago
Though the enormous vertical farming operation FarmedHere shuttered in 2017, Chicago is still seeing plenty of developments from other urban agriculture players. Gotham Greens operates a facility in the Pullman area. And generating quite a bit of buzz of late is the aforementioned Farm on Ogden, a partnership between the Lawndale Christian Health Center and Chicago Botanic Garden. The $3.5 million year-round project will provide both jobs and local, sustainably produced food to the struggling North Lawndale area, where unemployment soars, over 14 percent of the population has diabetes, and one in four adults suffers from PTSD. The multi-use facility will offer year-round food production, teaching kitchens, and job training for everyone from teenagers to those with criminal backgrounds. The project is also in the midst of building a 50,000-gallon aquaponic system that will raise lettuce and tilapia.
Grove
Boston
Like Chicago, Boston’s urban landscape and often-grim weather make it a prime candidate for the indoor urban farming movement.
Dorm-room project turned full-fledged business Grove takes a slightly different approach, trading enormous warehouses for compact pieces of furniture in which to place its “farms.” As my colleague Catherine noted recently, Grove has teamed up with furniture and appliance companies to create custom hardware, while it supplies seed pods and ag software to cultivate the crops.
If, on the other hand, you’re after a more utilitarian means of growing your produce, Freight Farms can provide you with one of its vertical farms housed in 40-square-foot shipping containers. Each Leafy Green Machine container is a fully climate controlled environment with vertical crop columns, LEDs, and a closed-loop hydroponic irrigations system. The accompanying farmhand platform, meanwhile, lets users automate many of the growing tasks, and generates real-time data for crop analysis. Freight Farms counts multiple universities, as well as big names like Google, among its customers.
Detroit
Of course, if any city stands poised to benefit from the urban agriculture revolution, it’s Detroit; it's 78,000 empty/abandoned spaces are prime real estate for potential farming endeavors.
Artesian Farms is a great example: the company’s current warehouse facility sat abandoned from the late ’90s to when the company moved in around 2014. Now, thanks to a collaboration with Green Spirit Farms, Artesian has turned the warehouse’s 7,500 square feet of traditional space into one gigantic vertical farm. The company is also a community builder: 100 percent of current employees are from the surrounding Brightmoor neighborhood, which also benefits from access to the food produced.
RecoveryPark Farms, meanwhile, is another effort to transform urban blight via indoor and urban farming practices. The project grows produce, root vegetables, and herbs in hydroponic greenhouses that’s then shipped out to restaurants within a 300-mile radius.
Like many other companies listed here, RecoverPark provides as much community outreach and employment as it does homegrown food. Which, at the end of the day, is really what “eating local” should be all about.