January 18, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Bowery Farming announced it has secured $150 million through a credit facility led by private credit accounts managed by global investment firm KKR, bringing the company’s total funding to-date to $647 million. 

Based in New York City, Bowery Farming is the largest vertical farming company in the U.S. 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. Through their platform BoweryOS, software, hardware, sensors, computer vision technology, machine learning, and robotics work together to integrate levels of automation into indoor agricultural production systems, eliminating human labor and allowing for urban vertical farming to operate at scale.

This gives Bowery the ability to orchestrate and automate the entirety of its operations and 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, making Bowery’s farms highly efficient.

In May of last year, the company closed on a $300 million Series C led by Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, representing the largest private fundraise to-date in the indoor farming vertical. 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. 

With this funding behind it, Bowery continued to see significant growth in 2021 as it also achieved a number of milestones, including:

~ The opening of FarmX, a state-of-the-art plant science hub in Kearny, New Jersey, that expanded the company’s R&D by nearly 300 percent.

~ The transformation of an industrial site in Pennsylvania into a technologically advanced smart farm.

~And more than doubling company revenue. 

But Bowery is not done yet. The capital secured through this credit facility will drive further growth for the company, serving to accelerate the expansion of Bowery’s network of smart, indoor farms beyond the East Coast.

Concurrent to the announced funding, the company also reported that it is building two new state-of-the-art farms in the Atlanta, Georgia, and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, metro areas. Both farms, which are scheduled to open in Q1 2023, are expected to create more than 200 year-round jobs and will supply locally-grown produce to populations of 20 million and 16 million, respectively. 

“We’re thrilled to announce our expansion beyond the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions,” said Irving Fain, CEO and founder, Bowery Farming. “KKR’s support is a testament to the proven success of our business model and a strong vote of confidence in our technology leadership and ability to address critical challenges in the current agricultural system. There is an enormous economic opportunity that comes with supporting our mission to democratize access to local, pesticide-free Protected Produce, and now we are ready to continue our growth more rapidly.”

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.

These new farms will feature industry-leading technological innovations that leverage billions of data points collected from previous farms, resulting in improvements to efficiency in all elements of the growing environment – from LED lighting, to water recapture, to climate control systems.

Since its founding, Bowery’s proprietary farm design and technology have been a priority for the company, and the heart of its efficient and scalable business model. This new funding also will serve to provide resources to accelerate advancements to BoweryOS and the company’s farm design.

As such, these farms embody Bowery’s recommitment to its sustainability goals, and its plans toward generating 100 percent of its power from renewable sources.

“We are excited to support Bowery’s pioneering efforts in vertical farming, which are directly contributing to the resiliency of our food supply,” said Michelle Hour, director, KKR. “We believe that Bowery has the right commercial model, technology and team to capitalize on the rapidly growing consumer demand for sustainably-sourced food, and we look forward to helping the Company continue to innovate and scale to benefit communities across the United States.”

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone 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-stone@globalaginvesting.com. 

*The content put forth by Global AgInvesting News and its parent company HighQuest Partners is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. All information or other material herein is not to be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Global AgInvesting and HighQuest Partners are not a fiduciary in any manner, and the reader assumes the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information or other content on this site.