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80 Acres Farms Strikes 'Significant Investment' From San Francisco Private Equity Firm
15-Jan-2019 By Mary Ellen Shoup
Vertical indoor farming company, 80 Acres Farms, has received a "significant investment" from Virgo Investment Group, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, to help rapidly commercialize the company's specialized indoor farming technology.
For more information:
Uber CEO, Temasek Invest in Urban Farming Startup
The New York-based company plans to announce on Wednesday that it raised US$90 million from investors including Alphabet Inc's GV and Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, said Bowery's co-founder and CEO, Irving Fain.
THU, DEC 13, 2018 - 7:28 AM
The New York-based company plans to announce on Wednesday that it raised US$90 million from investors including Alphabet Inc's GV and Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, said Bowery's co-founder and CEO, Irving Fain. The company declined to provide its valuation.
PHOTO: REUTERS
[SAN FRANCISCO] Bowery Farming Inc, a two-year-old startup that uses robotics to cultivate crops indoors, is on track for more growth. The New York-based company plans to announce on Wednesday that it raised US$90 million from investors including Alphabet Inc's GV and Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, said Bowery's co-founder and CEO, Irving Fain. The company declined to provide its valuation.
Bowery is part of a new crop of agriculture technology startups growing leafy greens in controlled environments near cities. Last year, Plenty, a San Francisco-based vertical farming company, raised US$200 million from the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp's Vision Fund.
Bowery grows its veggies in layers of sensor-rich trays that move and react to humidity, carbon dioxide and light. One square foot of Bowery's indoor farm is 100 times more productive than an equivalent plot of arable land, Bowery says. Plenty makes similar claims.
Part of the urgency of Bowery's business plan is the prospect of looming global food shortages. The United Nations says food production will need to double in the next three decades to feed the planet's swelling population. Bowery and its ilk see a business opportunity in building massive indoor farms in and on the outskirts of cities - a costly proposition, but one that could cut down on waste and ensure fresher produce.
"This round is solid validation for the scope of the problem and the opportunity," said Mr Fain. To date, Bowery has raised US$118 million from investors including First Round Capital and General Catalyst.
GV, formerly Google Ventures, led the most recent investment, which includes funding from Singapore's state investment firm, Temasek Holdings Pte.
Mr Fain said Uber's Khosrowshahi became an investor because of his interest in futuristic cities. "Uber is a big believer in cities and the importance of sustainable cities," said Mr Fain.
Bowery currently operates two indoor farms in Kearny, New Jersey. The facilities send greens like kale, bok choy and butterhead lettuce to Whole Foods and salad chain Sweetgreen. Mr Fain said the fresh funding will be used to open new farms in the US and internationally.
Bowery declined to disclose how many new farms are in the works or where they would be located. "There is no question that we intend to have our farms in cities across the world," Mr Fain said.
Andy Wheeler, a Bowery board member and partner at GV, echoed Mr Fain's global expansion ambitions. "The company is poised to have a significant impact on the global produce market," he said.
Bowery is planning to expand its headcount too, Mr Fain said. The company employs 65 people. Some of these employees could come from Amazon, Mr Fain suggested. Though competition for talent will likely be tough as the e-commerce giant ramps up hiring for its new office in New York.
This year, Bowery hired Brian Donato, a former senior operator of Amazon Fresh and Pantry food delivery services; Scott Horoho, a former senior Amazon engineering manager; and Jeff Raines, a former director of data center engineering for Amazon Web Services.
What Bowery’s Latest Funding Round Says About Indoor Farming
The new investment round brings Bowery’s total funding to $117.5 million.
By
December 13, 2018
New Jersey-based indoor-farming startup Bowery announced yesterday that it has raised $90 million in fresh funding. The round was led by Alphabet Inc.’s GV with participation from Temasek and Almanac Ventures, General Catalyst and GGV Capital (Bowery’s Series A investors), and various seed investors.
Bowery produces what founder Irving Fain calls “post-organic produce.” Or to put it more plainly, Bowery produces leafy greens in an indoor environment it controls with proprietary software. The FarmOS system, as it’s called, helps farmers manage crops by collecting data about water flow, light levels, humidity, and other environmental factors that impact the taste of greens. And because the farm is indoors, Bowery can grow its crops without soil, pesticides, or chemicals.
This new investment round brings Bowery’s total funding to $117.5 million. That sounds like a lot until you compare it to Softbank’s $200 million investment in Bowery’s West Coast competitor Plenty, which took place in July of 2017.
Both companies’ raises illustrate the enormous amount of interest in indoor and vertical farming right now. The latter field is expected to have a market valuation of more than $13 billion by 2024, and there are dozens of other companies working on various iterations of indoor farming today.
AeroFarms grows leafy greens inside a 70,000-square-foot facility in New Jersey and has backing from IKEA and Momofuku’s David Chang. Crop One Holdings and Emirates Flight Catering are building what they call “the world’s largest vertical farm.” And Ford Motors operates a farm in Detroit that helps feed the homeless.
Okay, but will leafy greens really feed the homeless? Will butter lettuce and fresh basil help alleviate the global food shortage we’re expected to face as the population nears 9 billion people?
By itself, indoor farming can’t do either of those things, at least not adequately. But that doesn’t render indoor farming an overhyped segment. What it does mean, though, is that we need to start moving beyond the leafy greens and start producing foods with a little more substance. Plenty says cucumbers and strawberries are next on its list. Meanwhile, it’s possible to grow root vegetables like turnips, beets, and sweet potatoes using hydroponics. It’s just more expensive and more challenging than basil.
Bowery says its new capital will go towards “scale its operation in new cities across the country and open multiple farms by the end of 2019.” There’s no word yet on whether those new farms will stick to leafy greens or branch out, though Fain did say Bowery is working on “scalable solutions for an impending climate and food crisis.”
We’ll hopefully see Bowery put those words into action by figuring out how to widen the possibilities of what we can grow with indoor farming.
Marlboro Parent Company Makes $1.8 Billion Bet On Cannabis
12/07/2018
Altria Group Inc. announced today the world’s first “Big Tobacco” investment into the cannabis space: a whopping $1.8 billion for Canadian LP Cronos Group, CNN reports.
Altria — the parent company behind Phillip Morris USA and Marlboro cigarettes — will have a 45 percent stake in Cronos following the investment, with the option for increasing its share to 55 percent over the next five years.
News about the potential investment first broke earlier this week.
“Altria is the ideal partner for Cronos Group, providing the resources and expertise we need to meaningfully accelerate our strategic growth.” — Cronos Group Chairman, President, and CEO Mike Gorenstein, in a press release
Altria has seen its stocks consistently drop in recent years as the popularity of cigarettes and tobacco and general has diminished.
“Investing in Cronos Group as our exclusive partner in the emerging global cannabis category represents an exciting new growth opportunity for Altria,” Altria Chairman and CEO Howard Willard said in a statement. “We believe that Cronos Group’s excellent management team has built capabilities necessary to compete globally, and we look forward to helping Cronos Group realize its significant growth potential.”
Altria stock had fallen 25 percent so far, this year — however, following its cannabis announcement, the major tobacco firm’s shares saw a 2 percent rise in early trading on Friday. Meanwhile, Cronos shares had soared some 30 percent.
“Importantly, Altria shares our vision of driving long-term value through innovation, and we look forward to continuing to differentiate in this area,” said Cronos CEO Mike Gorenstein. “As one of the largest holding companies in the adult consumer products sector, Altria has decades of experience in regulatory, government affairs, compliance, product development, and brand management that we expect to leverage, particularly as new markets for cannabis open around the world.”
The $1.8 billion investment — about C$2.4 billion — is the industry’s first “Big Tobacco” investment, but several major alcohol companies have already injected money into the cannabis space. Constellation Brands, the brewer of Corona beer and a major North American distributor for Svedka vodka, invested $4 billion into Canada’s Canopy Growth earlier this year. It remains the largest investment into the cannabis space, so far.
Coca-Cola Inc. was also in talks briefly about launching a CBD product line in Canada but the potential deal reportedly stalled shortly after it was revealed.
Lead photo: Sarah Johnson
AgFunder Just Released The Inaugural China AgriFood Startup Investing Report
AgFunder just released the inaugural China AgriFood Startup Investing Report in collaboration with our report partner Bits x Bites. The report covers technology startups operating across the agrifood value chain as well as other non-tech startups disrupting China’s agrifood industry.
In 2017, Chinese agrifood startups raised $1.8 billion of investment across 177 deals with 198 participating investors.
The vast majority of startups featured in the report are building businesses downstream at the consumer end of the agrifood supply chain, to answer the growing middle class's demand for premium products - a major driver for the overall Chinese economy - as well as convenience.
Startups operating upstream raised just $106 million across 28 deals as scattered farmland and complicated supply chains make it difficult for upstream startups to gain momentum in China.
China's position as the global leader in e-commerce shone through as the eGrocery segment raised the largest amount of investor funding at $814m.
Technology-enabled "new retail" built a lot of hype during the year, driving $565 million of investment in In-Store Retail & Restaurant Tech but 90% of the startups offering unmanned store and vending machine technology had failed before the end of the year, according to local media reports.
China's three technology giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) were key players in the sector during the year investing $741 million in agrifood startups (41% of total) and responsible for $5.8 million in M&A.
Find out more about the key deals and investors driving China's fledgling agrifood startup sector here:
Download the FREE 32-page report here
Michael Dean, CIO, and the AgFunder team
About AgFunder
AgFunder is an online Venture Capital Platform investing in the bold and exceptional entrepreneurs transforming our food and agriculture system. Our in-house technology enables us to invest globally and at scale, make better investment decisions,and supporting our portfolio companies. Through media and research, AgFunder has built a community of over 50,000 members and subscribers, giving us the largest and most powerful network in the industry.
Stay up-to-date with AgriFood Tech Startup news, and other reports, by signing up to our newsletter here.
US: Indoor Agtech Producer Providing Lease-Back Program
United Opportunities, the developer of an exclusive program that allows individuals to take ownership positions in the AgTech market, announced that manufacturing of its high-tech growing environments has commenced. The company's advanced indoor cultivation Pods are being manufactured in Southern California and will be available for delivery by end of summer.
The company is selling these high-tech growing Pods with a unique lease-back program that allows Pod owners to receive quarterly payments while United Opportunities manages the unit and handles the cultivation, sales and distribution.
Each Pod is a self-contained cultivation system, equipped with proprietary technology, patented air and water filtration systems, and specially tuned lighting.
Jack Boyle, CEO of United Opportunities, created the company because of the explosion in the AgTech sector - and specifically in the indoor farming sector.
"The AgTech industry is not only one of the fastest growing sectors in the world, but it is also creating a profound change in how and where crops are grown, distributed and sold," Boyle said. "We are at the tip of an agricultural revolution that will impact billions of lives worldwide."
United Opportunities has developed a "Pod Farm" in California where the first 1,000 units will be placed. Owners of the units will receive a guaranteed 20% yield, paid on a quarterly basis.
For more information:
United Opportunities
(800) 379-4052
Publication date: 8/10/2018