The Venture Codex

Participated · Series A · May 2024

Iyris commercializes SecondSky, a proprietary additive for polyethylene and other greenhouse materials that blocks near‑infrared radiation while allowing photosynthetically active radiation to pass through. The company sells SecondSky polycarbonate, polyethylene, nets and soon‑to‑launch shade screens through manufacturers and local distributors and serves both large international growers and smaller farmers via partners. Iyris says its technology (including resilient plant genetics) can reduce energy and water consumption by up to 90%, extend growing seasons, increase yields and deliver a payback within a year. The business originated from innovations at KAUST and was co‑founded in 2018 by CEO Ryan Lefers, plant scientist Mark Tester and Derya Baran; it initially grew and sold tomatoes before commercializing the tech. Iyris has expanded from Saudi/UAE beginnings into markets across 11 countries — including the UAE, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, the U.K., the U.S., Portugal, Spain and Mexico — with clients such as Silal, Armando Alvarez Group and Criado & Lopez. The company reports it brought in more customers and sold more products (or made more revenue) in Q1 2024 than it did in the whole of 2023 and plans to grow hectares covered, regions served (including India and China) and square meters installed.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2022

Mad Capital is a specialty finance company based in Boulder, CO, led by Phil Taylor and Brandon Welch, that provides customized, one-stop credit to regenerative organic and transitioning farmers. The company offers operating, equipment, and infrastructure loans, as well as mortgages, working capital, and transitional loans. Mad Capital manages pools of capital that offer farmers flexible and customized financing to help them grow during the organic transition period. Its inaugural Perennial Fund combines debt funds with traditional financing to create capital stacks for farmers accelerating their transition. The company intends to use new funds to ramp up operations, expand its farmer ecosystem, and transition more acres into regenerative organic farmland. The recent $4M seed raise will support those plans and expand lending capacity.

Participated · Series A · May 2022

Conserv offers an environmental monitoring platform that combines traditional environmental data from wireless sensors with pest management data to give preservation professionals an overview of risks to their collections. The system uses LoRaWAN-based sensors for wireless setup and maintenance in complex, sensitive environments. Conserv serves museums, libraries, archives, and historic properties and has grown to over 300 customers in the last 18 months. Notable users include Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Massachusetts State Libraries, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. The company has a team of eleven employees, including four full-time conservators, and recently added a President and Chief Product Officer in advance of closing the round. Conserv intends to use the Series A proceeds to expand operations in the United States and Europe.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2021

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.

Participated · Series C · Mar 2020

Second Nature began as FilterEasy, a D2C subscription service to help homeowners remember to change air filters and has expanded into partnerships with HVAC companies, real estate agents, utilities and commercial properties. Its core products are recurring air filters and a new water‑filtration line launching with refrigerator filters; the company is positioning itself as a broader “home wellness” brand. The business reports hundreds of thousands of customers and around 150 employees, roughly two‑thirds of whom work in fulfillment and distribution across warehouses in Ardmore, OK and Wilson, NC. In response to COVID‑19 it has retooled manufacturing to produce masks for hospitals, with materials on hand to make ~800,000 masks and capacity to produce up to 2 million per month as materials allow. The company says demand has generally risen even as some commercial channels were hurt, and it plans to use new funding to expand, hire and advance first‑party products in R&D with an emphasis on product/process improvements and environmental benefits. FilterEasy is a subscription-based HVAC air filter fulfillment service launched in 2014 and based in Raleigh. It uses a proprietary web-based platform to guarantee correct-size HVAC air filters are delivered to a customer's doorstep so they may be replaced on a regular cadence. The service addresses the common problem of consumers forgetting to change air filters and aims to simplify that task so filters are changed "on time, every time." Proper filter replacement is presented as improving indoor air quality and human health, and the company cites potential reductions in monthly heating and cooling expenses of 5%–15%. FilterEasy announced a $6.9 million Series B1 financing led by One Better Ventures and joined by Lead Edge Capital. The company says the funding will be used for product innovation and development, expanding warehouse and fulfillment capabilities, and accelerating growth. FilterEasy is a Raleigh, North Carolina-based company offering a subscription-based HVAC air filter fulfillment service via a proprietary web-based platform. Co-founded by Thad Tarkington and Kevin Barry, the company focuses on residential HVAC filter subscriptions and fulfillment. Its filters are manufactured in the United States by AAF Flanders, the nation’s largest residential HVAC filter manufacturer and a supplier to NASA and U.S. hospital systems. In July 2017 FilterEasy raised $6.9M in a Series B led by Arsenal Venture Partners. The round brought the company’s total funding to $11.4M. The business operates as a direct-to-consumer subscription fulfillment service for residential HVAC filters. FilterEasy operates a subscription-based air-filter replacement service for homeowners, letting customers pick filter size and quality and choose how often replacements ship. The site offers over 40 filter sizes and three quality levels, and pricing is the same as retail but sold on a recurring basis. The company partners and co-locates with U.S. manufacturer Flanders to ship filters directly to customers at store cost. Since launching out of beta in March 2014, FilterEasy has signed up over 10,000 paying subscribers and is running at a revenue run rate of more than $1 million per year. The team of 13 plans to use new funding to expand marketing and is beta-testing a commercial program for businesses such as gyms and restaurants. FilterEasy was founded by former NCSU students Kevin Barry and Thad Tarkington and is based in Raleigh, N.C.; the founders participated in The Iron Yard accelerator in Greenville.