French Urban Farmers Agricool Placed In Receivership After Funding Round Failure

According to Les Echos, French startup Agricool was placed in receivership on January 31st after an ultimate funding round failure.

Founded in 2015 by Guillaume Fourdinier & Gonzague Gru, Agricool was reputed throughout the country for its strawberries grown in containers (even delivering a container in Dubai, UAE). Their yield per square meter and the amount of nutrition was well above traditional farms.

Following their successful launch, the young company decided to diversify the range of crops with salads and aromatic herbs. They also settled an impressive distribution network with about 100 stores in Ile-de-France thanks to its partnership with Monoprix.

As the company was a precursor in such technology in France, the concept attracted many investors (XAnge, Kima Ventures, BpiFrance etc...) who injected about 35 million euros into the start-up (25 million being injected in December 2018). During its latest round, Agricool planned to manufacture hundreds of its flagship container by 2021 but due to a lack of a viable economic model, it was unable to achieve its objective.

In 2020, it inaugurated a new model, an urban farm made up of 10 containers. “We are giving ourselves a year to prove that this farm, which is probably the most advanced in the world in terms of technology, is viable both economically and ecologically,” said Guillaume Fourdinier at the time.

In 2020, the young company recorded a turnover of 162,000 euros for a loss of 7.72 million euros (the 2021 accounts are not yet available). The same year, Agricool resorted to partial unemployment and took out three state-guaranteed loans for a total value of 2.25 million euros.

To reinject fresh blood in the company, they appointed Jean-Christophe Sibileau to handle the operational aspect leaving the founder, handling the financing and R&D aspect. A round table has been initiated but unfortunately did not succeed which led to this situation today.