A UK-based vertical farm business has announced a £5.4 million Series A funding round led by a US agri-food investor.
Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), a Scottish-based vertical farm technology business, announced the news today (June 18).
The Series A funding round was led by S2G (Chicago), the most active agri-foodtech investor globally in 2018, with online venture capital firm AgFunder (San Francisco), the second most active and Scottish Investment Bank (SIB).
IGS supplies plug-and-play vertical farming technology to indoor farms to enable the production of food in any location around the world.
To demonstrate the unique technology stack it has developed, the company opened its first vertical farming demonstration facility in August 2018.
Since then it has received significant interest from around the world with orders mounting for its technologies.
It's technology has been designed specifically to address some of vertical farming’s main challenges, including the cost of power and labour, as well as the inability to produce consistently high-quality produce at scale.
These economic and operational barriers to growth have inhibited the sector’s expansion to date.
But IGS's £5.4 million investment will allow the creation of jobs in areas such as software development, engineering, robotics and automation.
In 2019, the company will be deploying indoor farming systems for clients in every major territory globally.
It comes as global market growth in vertical farming is predicted to grow 24 percent per annum over the next three years.
Last week, Berlin-based vertical farm company Infarm raised $100m (£78.5m) in funding.
