• Infarm

  Participated · Series C · Sep 2020

  Infarm builds climate-controlled vertical farms and a global farming network focused on producing fruits, vegetables and herbs near consumers. The company says it will use R&D to expand the range of crops it can grow, including a push into fruits beyond leafy greens. Management has an ambition to grow the entire fruit and vegetable basket and to provide premium products at affordable prices. Much of its current strategy centers on international expansion across Europe, the U.S., Canada, Japan, Asia-Pacific markets and the Middle East. Infarm highlights the water-efficiency and climate-control benefits of vertical farming as part of its case for expansion. Financially, the company has raised multiple rounds and now counts total funding north of $600 million and a valuation well above $1 billion. Infarm builds modular indoor farming systems—cabinets and 25-sq-meter growing centers—that allow retailers and food businesses to grow salad greens, herbs and other produce onsite. The company launched in 2013 and operates across 10 countries, supplying major retailers including Amazon, Kroger, Marks & Spencer, and Metro AG. Infarm’s modular center is marketed as extremely land-efficient, claiming a 25‑square‑meter unit can produce the equivalent of up to 10,000 square meters of farmland. The startup’s core offering is vertical, controlled-environment agriculture hardware and growing-as-a-service for supermarkets, restaurants and other indoor spaces. Management plans to use new capital to expand the team and broaden crop variety beyond salad greens and herbs into chilis, mushrooms and tomatoes to offer a more premium basket. CEO Erez Galonska says the product roadmap aims to accelerate shifts toward plant-based diets, and the company has no immediate plans to go public. Infarm builds modular, IoT-powered indoor vertical farms and a cloud-based control platform to grow herbs, microgreens and leafy greens for placement in grocery stores, restaurants, distribution centers and other customer-facing locations. Its distributed “Farming-as-a-Service” model combines hardware, IoT, big data and cloud analytics to monitor and control individual farming units remotely. The company operates across 10 countries and 30 cities and now harvests more than 500,000 plants monthly, offering a catalog of over 65 varieties. Infarm says its units use dramatically less space, water and transport, aims to run on high shares of renewable electricity and has a target to reach zero-emission food production next year. Founded in 2013, Infarm plans to scale by adding more modules and expanding distribution hubs to deliver larger volumes from next-generation farms; it expects the network to shift from a roughly 50/50 store/hub split to about 80/20. Future product plans include expanding beyond herbs to root vegetables, mushrooms, flowering crops and other specialty or superfood produce. To date it has raised more than $300 million. Infarm is a Berlin-based urban farming startup that has developed a quickly-deployable modular vertical farming platform. The company currently operates in Germany, Switzerland, and France and partners with retailers including Edeka, Metro, Migros, Casino, Intermarche, Auchan, Selgros, and Amazon Fresh. It has deployed 200 in-store farms and 150 farms in distribution centres, harvesting more than 150,000 plants monthly. Infarm secured $100 million in a financing described as a mix of equity and debt led by Atomico, with participation from Balderton Capital, Astanor Ventures, Cherry Ventures, and TriplePoint Capital. Management says the funding will be used to grow the company’s presence across North America, Asia, and Europe. The company plans to launch operations in the UK in September and is in talks with retailers in the US and Japan. Infarm has developed modular indoor vertical farming systems that grow herbs, lettuce, other vegetables and fruit and places them in customer-facing city locations such as grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls and schools. Each farming unit is cloud-connected and monitored from a central control centre, combining IoT, big data and cloud analytics to deliver a data-driven "Farming-as-a-Service" platform. The distributed system is designed to be infinitely scalable by adding modules and supports tailored growing recipes controlling light spectra, temperature, pH and nutrients to optimize flavor, colour and nutritional quality. Infarm operates more than 50 farms across Berlin, including in EDEKA and METRO locations, and says a single farm unit can output up to 1,200 plants per month. The company plans international expansion to Paris, London and Copenhagen and other German cities, and is targeting 1,000 operational farms across Europe by the end of 2019. Financially, the Berlin-based company has raised $25 million in Series A and $35 million in total to date, including a $2.5 million European Commission Horizon 2020 grant, and will use the new capital to expand internationally and develop its 5,000 sqm R&D centre in Berlin.

No current team members are available.