May 25, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

High-tech, indoor, vertical farming startup Bowery Farming has raised the largest private funding round to-date in the indoor farming category – a $300 million Series C led by Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC that brings total funding to-date for the company to $472 million, and gives it a valuation of $2.3 billion.

The round also included a roster of high-profile individual investors that are plant-based food advocates, including Natalie Portman, Lewis Hamilton, Chris Paul, Justin Timberlake, and renowned chef and hunger activist  José Andrés.

Follow-on investments committed by existing investors were made by GV, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, Temasek, Groupe Artémis, along with new participation from Amplo and Gaingels – a fund representing the LGBTQ community and allies. 

Today, the largest vertical farming company in the U.S., Bowery began in Kearny, New Jersey, when it was founded in 2015 by Irving Fain, David Golden, and Brian Falther. The company leverages advances in LED technology, robotics, and data management to make intensive, indoor agriculture more viable than ever. Within their operation, software and hardware work together through its BoweryOS platform  to integrate levels of automation into indoor agricultural production systems, eliminating human labor and allowing for urban vertical farming to operate at scale.

Bowery’s proprietary, fully-integrated software system, which has been key to the business since its founding, uses vision technology and machine learning to monitor crops around the clock while collecting data that can drive actionable insight. By controlling the production process from germination to harvest, Bowery is able to produce crops 365 days a year, using zero pesticides and 95 percent less water, and at a rate that is 100 times more productive than traditional agriculture. Additionally, because indoor facilities can be located in urban settings, Bowery’s produce can be delivered to retail stores and restaurants within one day of harvest compared to weeks from remote fields.

“At Bowery, we’re reinventing a new supply chain that’s simpler, safer, more sustainable and ultimately provides vibrantly flavorful produce unlike what’s available today,” said Irving Fain, CEO and founder, Bowery Farming.

Since January 2020 Bowery has experienced more than 750 percent growth at brick-and-mortar stores, including Albertsons Companies, Giant Food, Walmart, and Whole Foods, to have a presence in more than 850 locations, and has more than quadrupled its e-commerce sales through platforms including Amazon Fresh.

The company stated that it will use the funds from this round to drive the expansion of its network of smart indoor farms across the U.S., to further accelerate its technological leadership, to support ongoing research and product innovation as its works to bring crops beyond leafy greens to market, and to recruit top talent to help it meet booming demand for its reliable supply of pesticide-free produce. 

“This infusion of new capital from Fidelity, other new investors, and the additional support of our long-term investor partners is acknowledgement of the critical need for new solutions to our current agricultural system, and the enormous economic opportunity that comes with supporting our mission,” said Fain.

Each new farm that Bowery launches comes online in record time, and is immediately able to benefit from the power of Bowery’s network and its billions of data points, which would have taken traditional farmers hundreds of years to compile. This funding will also serve to enable more communities to have access to a reliable supply of locally-grown produce on a year-round basis.

Currently, the company is renovating an industrial site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, into its largest and most technologically-advanced and sustainable farm to-date, giving the company an even further penetration into the Northeast and Pennsylvania markets. The company also plans to be breaking ground on additional large-scale commercial farms this year, and is actively working to identify locations in the U.S. with a view toward international expansion.

“Bowery’s approach to indoor farming represents a meaningful disruption to the traditional produce supply chain, and its systems-based approach to engineering and farm design is unparalleled,” said Andy Wheeler, general partner, GV. “I look forward to continuing to partner with the Bowery team as they build and scale the largest indoor farming network in the U.S. and bring more sustainable produce to consumers.”

Indeed, earlier in May Bowery announced the opening of Farm X, its state-of-the-art innovation hub for plant science located in Kearny, New Jersey. Housing a first-of-its-kind, in-house breeding program and research laboratory, this hub expanded the company’s R&D capacity by 300 percent and enabled the company to accelerate the timelines for bringing next-generation crops from tomatoes and cucumbers, to strawberries and root vegetables, to consumers.

“This funding not only fuels our continued expansion,” said Fain,” but the ongoing development of our proprietary technology, which sits at the core of our business and our ability to rapidly and efficiently scale towards an increasingly important opportunity in front of us.”

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.