What are smart farms and why famous billionaires invested $ 200 million in them

Salad leaves. Photo: depositphotos

Creator of smart farms Plenty, which yields in 530 times higher than that of ordinary fields, will send funds to the global expansion. Reports about it TechCrunch.

Smart farms Plenty - These are plastic shelves with heights sometimes up to 6 meters, in which greens and salads are grown. Plants are planted not in the soil, but in the spongy substance that replaces it. Water them, enriched with minerals. On smart farms, you can grow any kind of crop except root crops and those that grow on trees.

Matt Barnard, Chief Executive Officer Plenty calls the products that are grown on smart farms - superorganic, since the company does not use any chemicals and pesticides in the growth process.

The company promises that the price of superorganic vegetables will be competitive with the prices of vegetables that are grown in the traditional way. Presently Plenty already deployed two farms. One in the south of San Francisco, California, and the second in Laramie, Wyoming.

The company makes the main bet on the opportunity to grow vegetables to order from local shops and restaurants, excluding the time and cost of transporting food.

Approximate yield - up to 1360 tons of greens per year. The yield of such farms in 530 is higher than that of ordinary fields.

The first billionaire who became interested in smart farms was Masayoshi Son, #1 in 50 ranking of the richest people in Japan and #34, according to Forbes. Technology Investment Fund Softbank visioncreated by the founder and CEO SoftBank Group Corp Masayoshi Son, has invested in the company of a smart farming complex Plenty $ 200 million.

Japanese businessman joined the chairman of the board A Eric Schmidt and CEO Amazon.com Jeff Bezos, they invested in the project through their investment firms. Innovation Endeavors and Bezos Expeditions.

The billionaires believed in the company even earlier, this time only by confirming their support with new investments. Former investors, including DCM Venture Company, also participated in this investment round. In total, a startup founded in the summer of 2014, attracted $ 226 million during its existence.

The funds collected in the last round of the company intends to direct the global expansion of its vertical farms.

Earlier the company Amazon Jeff Bezos bought a network of healthy supermarkets. After this purchase, many have suggested that Amazon will deal with the delivery of sets of food. But investments in Plenty build a completely different scheme - fresh greens from the field to the buyer.

First shipments Plenty in American supermarkets are being planned for 2018 year. In addition to supermarkets, online delivery to San Francisco is also planned.

In the future, the company expects to locate its farms in regions around the world. Plenty is not the only company that grows vegetables in vertical farms. Similar projects Aerofarms, BrightFarms, Bowery Farming and Freight Farms also attracted tens of millions of dollars in investment to develop their own domestic farming systems. They expect to provide the market with better, fresher and cheaper products that would benefit from traditional agricultural products. Of course, such companies are serious competition. Plenty.

Her own project for growing crops in the room was engaged even A, but he closed it in 2015 due to the fact that he did not reach the planned figures. In addition to them, other companies were engaged in similar projects, such as Podponics from atlanta and Farmedhere from Chicago, but all closed, as the business was unprofitable.

New York Brightfarms also postponed plans to create their own farms due to the high cost of projects

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