InFarm, a Germany-based indoor farming network backed by design agency Ideo and data analysis software provider Demand Analytics, secured $25m in a series A round yesterday.
Venture capital firm Balderton Capital led the round, which also featured venture finance provider TriplePoint Capital, investment firm Mons Investments, VC fund Cherry Ventures, investment manager Quadia and VC firm LocalGlobe.
Founded in 2013, InFarm oversees a range of modular urban farms that use big data technology to maintain control over the growth process. They span not only warehouses but spaces in supermarket aisles and restaurant kitchens.
The vertical farms are centrally monitored but can be individualised for each customer, with specific ecosystems designed to benefit each plant. Each two-metre square unit of space can produce up to 1,200 plants per month according to InFarm.
Erez Galonska, co-founder and chief executive of InFarm, said: “Rather than asking ourselves how to fix the deficiencies in the current supply chain, we wanted to redesign the entire chain from start to finish.
“Instead of building large-scale farms outside of the city, optimising on a specific yield, and then distributing the produce, we decided it would be more effective to distribute the farms themselves and farm directly where people live and eat.”
The company currently operates only within the greater Berlin area, but the series A funds will allow it to expand into other German cities as well as France, Denmark and the UK.
InFarm has now raised $35m altogether, it said, €2m ($2.5m) of which came from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 initiative.
Cherry Labs led the company’s $4.5m seed round in June 2017, which included Ideo, Demand Analytics, Quadia, LocalGlobe, Atlantic Food Labs and unnamed angel investors.
– Photo courtesy of InFarm – Indoor Urban Farming GmbH.