UK-based aeroponic tech developer LettUs Grow announced it has raised funding totaling £1 million (US$1.3million) from a combination of private and public backers.
The pioneering startup recently raised £460,000 (US$592,000) from ClearlySo, Bethnal Green Ventures, the University of Bristol Enterprise Fund II, a vehicle managed by Parkwalk Advisors, and additional angel investors.
This round was then followed by the company securing £399,650 (US$514,333) in grant funding from British innovation agency, Innovate UK to lead a £700,000 (US$900,000) project designed to enhance food security and resilience in the presence of climate change. Toward this end, LettUs Grow will work with controlled environment tech leader, ECH Engineering, and urban agriculture leaders Grow Bristol.
In addition to this funding, LettUs Grow also has been the recipient of multiple research grants including €100,000 (US$114,679) from the Green Challenge, one of the largest competitions in the area of sustainable entrepreneurship.
“Innovation is critical to ensuring long-term food security and sustainability. Our investors see the value, both in terms of financial and environmental/social returns from tackling this systemic global problem,” said Matias Wibowo, investment manager, ClearlySo. “That’s why they got involved in LettUs Grow. LettUs Grow provides the technological innovation piece to the vertical smart farming movement that is currently trending rapidly in the urban context.”
Founded in 2015 in Bristol by Ben Crowther, Charlie Guy, and the aptly named Jack Farmer, LettUs Grow has designed a patent-pending aeroponic tech system that has shown to produce leafy greens, salad crops, and herbs at a growth rate that is 70 percent above existing solutions. Through its platform, crops are grown with their roots suspended in a nutrient-dense mist, resulting in growth rates that surpass conventional hydroponics, produce predictable and consistent yields without the use of chemicals, all while using 95 percent less water compared to traditional farming.
“The global agri-tech industry is very exciting right now, all stemming from the necessity to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of food production,” said Charlie Guy. “We are fielding enquiries from all around the world from food producers and farmers who want to experience the benefits of our technology across a growing range of crops.”
This is the second vertical farming tech company on our radar for recently announcing funding. In mid-December Canadian agtech startup INNO-3B announced it had raised C$6 million (US$4.5 million) in seed funding through a round led by Ecofuel Fund. Additional backers include Desjardins Capital, the Fonds de Solidarité FTQ, Premier Tech, Fonds de Solidarité FTQ Bas Saint-Laurent, and Investissement Québec and the Ministère de l’Économie et de l’Innovation.
It was not too long ago that vertical farming was viewed as not being an investable asset class. However, since 1982, 24 million acres of U.S. farmland have been lost to development, and the loss continues at a rate of 40 acres of farm and ranch land every hour, according to the American Farmland Trust. More specifically, the California Climate & Agriculture Network states that California, one of the top-producing agricultural states in the country, has lost an average of 50,000 acres of farmland each year for the past 30 years due to urbanization and development.
It is the ability of indoor farming to meet and alleviate these challenges that is driving the market to be expected to exceed a value of US$6 billion by 2022. And as the industry scales up and proves out how it can answer multiple challenges from traditional long transport systems, to food waste, to water conservation, to food contamination, to growing food in urban food deserts, so have the funding rounds.
Indeed, Guy said, “This injection of private and public funding into the company enables us to accelerate our innovative products to market and build one of the most technically advanced facilities for indoor growing in the world.”
-Lynda Kiernan