Freight Farms develops vertical hydroponic farms housed in shipping containers that enable year-round local food production. Its farm automation software, farmhand®, allows indoor farm operators to control temperature, lighting, and other environmental variables and is flexibly architected to support many different indoor grow setups beyond Freight Farms’ containers. The company serves global customers ranging from small business farmers to corporate, hospitality, retail, education, and nonprofit sectors. Led by CEO Rick Vanzura, Freight Farms pursues a mission to create resilient, self-sufficient communities that can grow fresh, local, healthy food 365 days a year. The company raised $17.5M in a Series B3 round and intends to use the funds to expand operations and broaden its business reach. Freight Farms builds containerized vertical hydroponic farms for local production of fresh food. Founded in 2010 by CEO Brad McNamara and COO Jon Friedman and based in Boston, MA, the company pairs its hardware with an integral IoT data platform, farmhand®. It supports a large network of connected farms with customers in 25 countries and 44 U.S. states across small business, corporate, hospitality, retail, education and nonprofit sectors. The company raised $15M in a Series B to advance the technical potential of its platform through continued innovation. The round was led by Ospraie Ag Science with participation from existing investor Spark Capital, bringing total funding to more than $28M. Freight Farms plans to use the proceeds to continue product and platform development. Freight Farms builds shipping-container farms that grow lettuce using hydroponic technology, LED lighting, and automated watering and fertilizing systems. Its containers include cameras and a mobile app that let farmers track and control operations remotely. The company has deployed 100 farms to date. Financially, Freight Farms has completed a $7.3 million Series B and has now raised a total of $12 million. The startup previously raised $3.7 million in a 2014 Series A. Freight Farms was formed in 2010 by Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman. Freight Farms makes freight-truck-sized "farm-in-a-box" units that include all necessary equipment and storage to grow produce. The company released its 2015 model as an annual hardware update cycle and the founders describe it as the culmination of their performance improvements. The system can save up to 90% of water compared with traditional agriculture and may be able to go off-grid soon via solar or wind power. The farms auto-update their software over the internet, have a modular design to sit on brownfields with access to electricity and water, and use insulation to operate in different climates. Individual units are priced at $76,000 and the company highlights financing options for customers, including federal farm loan programs. The article also notes longer-term potential to ship units to regions like Africa and India and to serve both community and commercial growers.

Total raised

$44M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Nov 2022