Red Sea Farms develops CEA technologies and salt-tolerant crop varieties that enable greenhouses and indoor farms to use saltwater (diluted up to 30%) for cooling and irrigation. The company focuses mainly on tomatoes and says its proprietary system produces sweeter fruit with high levels of vitamins and antioxidants while saving as much as 90% of the freshwater typically required for growing tomatoes. Spun out of KAUST in 2018, Red Sea Farms combines plant science, sustainable cooling, light and energy management, and AI-driven systems. It is using recent funding to develop its first commercial-scale indoor farms and to expand into the UAE, with plans to grow to four–eight facilities across central and western Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi covering about six hectares. With new US investors on board, the company also plans to explore growth opportunities in the United States. Red Sea Farms is engaged in discussions with prospective investors about a next fundraising round slated for next year. Red Sea Farms develops saltwater-tolerant crops and a patent-pending saltwater-based greenhouse system that can be retrofitted into existing greenhouses. The company secured $1.9 million in funding to build a 2,000 square meter saltwater greenhouse in Saudi Arabia. Built on six years of research at KAUST, Red Sea Farms plans to produce 50 tons of tomatoes a year starting in 2020, growing plants in up to 30% diluted seawater. The system is intended to replace up to 90% of the freshwater usually used in tomato production and to reduce energy requirements up to tenfold compared with previous methods. The company aims to retrofit 5% of Saudi Arabia’s greenhouses and offers farmers a projected return on investment of less than two years. Investors include the KAUST Innovation Fund and the Research Products Development Company (RPDC), in the first co-investment between those two organizations to support high-tech entrepreneurs in the Kingdom.

Total raised

$8M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Aug 2021