Aliaxis Invests In Freight Farms, A World Leader In Vertical Farming Technology
14 November 2022
Brussels, November 14, 2022 – Aliaxis SA, a world leader in enabling access to water and energy through inventive fluid management solutions, today announced that it will invest in Freights Farms, a world leader in vertical farming technology and software allowing 90 to 99% water savings compared to traditional farming.
Freight Farms was founded in 2012 in the United States, with the mission to enable access to locally produced food. Nowadays, the company has evolved into an industry leader working with a diverse portfolio of educational institutions, entrepreneurs, non-profits, resorts, and more — all across five continents. Freight Farms offers a platform of products and services for controlled environment agriculture, including the Greenery™ S, a modular hydroponic grow system and farmhand®, an Internet of Things (IoT) farm management software that creates optimal climates using live and historical data from growing operations and connects to the system via a proprietary controller design. Freight Farms employs 50 people.
This strategic partnership will be part of Water for Food business unit within Aliaxis Next, the newly created division of Aliaxis to select, incubate, nurture, and grow businesses from new domains to improve water management.
“Currently, 70% of fresh water is used for food production,” says Eric Olsen, CEO of Aliaxis. “By investing in Freight Farms, we are delivering on our Growth with Purpose strategy to help produce affordable, fresh and locally produced food with much less water. Freight Farms is at the forefront of innovation of vertical farming. This market is growing at more than 25% of compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and is expected to be superior to $10bn market by 2026.”
“Aliaxis is an ideal strategic partner to Freight Farms,” comments Fredrik Östbye, Head of Aliaxis Next. “Agriculture is one of Aliaxis’s four main customer segments with three of our regions, India, Latin America and Australia, having strong ambitions in micro-irrigation, greenhouse technology and digital farming.”
“The Aliaxis Next set-up is unique. It’s a team of business builders investing strategically with a clear societal impact in mind: bringing solutions to world water challenges,” says Rick Vanzura, CEO of Freight Farms. “Their investment further solidifies the need for vertical hydroponics as a solution to the current agriculture system that has been a critical drain on finite resources such as water. Backed by the strength, know-how, and reach of Aliaxis Group, we are now able to continue our innovations in vertical hydroponic farming.”
The financial details of this agreement will not be disclosed
About Aliaxis
At Aliaxis, we design sustainable, easy to install, and innovative solutions to address the world’s water challenges and accelerate the transition to clean energy. Thanks to our 14,000+ employees, our pipes and fitting systems meet our customers’ most demanding needs for the building, infrastructure, industrial and agriculture sectors. Operating in over 40 countries, the Company is active through leading local brands and generated €3.7 billion in revenue in 2021. More information available on www.aliaxis.com.
About Freight Farms
Founded in 2012, Freight Farms debuted the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food. Since then, Freight Farms has expanded its product offering and now has the largest network of connected farms in the world, located in 38 countries, 49 U.S states, and four U.S. territories. AgTech Breakthrough named Freight Farms the 2022 “IoT Monitoring Solution of the Year” for its farmhand® IoT automation software. More information available on www.freightfarms.com.