Based out of Bristol, LettUs Grow is a startup designing irrigation and control technology for vertical farms. Founded in 2015, the company aims to reduce the waste and carbon footprint of fresh produce, by empowering anyone to grow delicious food near its point of consumption.
Raised €2.76 million
In the latest development, the award-winning company has secured £2.35 million (approx €2.76 million) in seed funding led by Longwall Venture Partners LLP. The round also included follow-on investment from the University of Bristol Enterprise Fund (managed by Parkwalk), Bethnal Green Ventures, and ClearlySo, with legal representation from VWV LLP.
The company is planning to use the funding to build its second state-of-the-art aeroponic research centre, scale existing technology, deliver on growing sales pipeline, and accelerate new product lines to market.
Vertical farming take center stage
This UK agritech company has designed a patent-pending indoor farming system for greenhouse and vertical farms to address global food security and sustainability concerns. It needs no fertile land to operate, use zero pesticides, and provide a consistent, predictable, and climate-resilient food supply all year round.
Aeroponic system and Ostara
Notably, the company’s offering centered around two core products — a novel aeroponic system and an integrated farm management software called Ostara. For the uninitiated, Ostara, combines crop performance data with agile controls to efficiently automate lighting, heat, irrigation and energy use in vertical farms.
It (Ostara) automates and controls the whole indoor farm, while collecting data on plants, overseeing inputs to crop growth, and allowing farmers to trace crops from seed to sale, making operations more efficient.
Charlie Guy, co-founder and Managing Director of LettUs Grow:
“This investment gives us a platform to accelerate in 2020 and scale-up the delivery of our game-changing technology to farmers across the country. We’re seeing rising demand from around the world for new technologies to help farmers grow crops in ways that mitigate the effects of climate change and ever-increasing extreme weather events.”
Rebecca Todd, Investment Director at Longwall Ventures, an early-stage technology investor:
“Food security is an emerging major international challenge, especially in this era of unpredictable climate that we are now entering. We at Longwall are excited to be backing LettUs Grow in the development of game-changing technology that has the potential to make a real difference by making food growing more efficient, predictable, controllable, and local.”
Main image picture credits: LettUs Grow
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