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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

indoor farming

AeroFarms, RNZ, RDI, and Madar Get $100M Investment to ‘Turn Sand Into Farmland’

The Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) announced today it will invest $100 million USD total in four agtech companies to develop next-generation agricultural solutions specifically for farming in desert environments.

ADIO said in a press release sent to The Spoon that it has partnered individually with New Jersey-based AeroFarms, United Arab Emirates-based Madar Farms, Florida-based Responsive Drip Irrigation (RDI), and Abu Dhabi-based RNZ. The $100 million investment covers all four individual deals.

ADIO’s overarching goal is to develop farming solutions that solve both regional and global agricultural challenges, among them minimal water supply, non-arable land, food scarcity, and climate change. ADIO also hopes the new investments will create more jobs for the region.

To that end, AeroFarms, which operates warehouse-sized vertical farms in the U.S., will build out a 8,200-sqm R&D center in Abu Dhabi where it will develop solutions specifically for desert-based agriculture as well as focus on genetic phenotyping and organoleptic research, advanced speed breeding, machine vision and machine learning, robotics, automation and drone technology.

Madar Farms will build out a commercial-scale indoor tomato farm in the KIZAD industrial zone of Abu Dhabi and, like AeroFarms, is also developing its own solutions for growing microgreens while using the region’s natural resources. 

And speaking of natural resources, RDI is using the investment to build a water irrigation system it says can improve crop yield in the region, which is comprised mostly of sandy soil and non-arable land.

Finally, RNZ will research and formulate new agri-input solutions such as seeds, fertilizers, and crop-protection products.

The investments in these four companies are part of ADIO’s $272 million AgTech Incentive Programme, which the Abu Dhabi Government’s Ghadan 21 Accelerator Programme established in 2019. “Four global AgTech innovators are joining our mission to turn sand into farmland,” H.E. Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of ADIO, said in the press release. “Each of these companies will add to our already established agriculture ecosystem, and benefit from our plentiful land, natural heat, competitive energy prices and access to research universities and skilled talent.”

Agtech in general is a priority for the Abu Dhabi government right now, with indoor farming, precision agriculture, and farming robotics as some of the biggest areas.

The long-term value of high-tech, indoor farming is yet to be truly determined, as there are still plenty of questions around its ability to scale economically while providing adequate amounts of food for a growing global population. Placing vertical farms in a desert environment, where alternative forms of farming are less available, could be a true test of the sector’s usefulness to our overall food system.

InFarm’s High-Tech Vertical Farms Head to Canadian Grocery Stores

InFarm is bringing its in-store vertical farming systems to Empire supermarkets across Canada, according to a press release from Empire. The partnership will launch this coming spring and put InFarms’s high-tech farm pods in stores across that country, including at Empire subsidiaries Sobeys, Thrifty Foods, and Safeway Canada. 

Berlin-based InFarm, which raised $100 million in June of 2019, has struck multiple deals with grocery store chains around the world over the last several months, including Irma in Denmark, M&S in the UK, and Kroger stores in the U.S. The company is one of many startups developing vertical and/or indoor farming solutions meant to shorten the food supply chain by growing greens closer to food stores.

With InFarm, that means growing those leafy greens and herbs inside the produce section of stores. The company’s indoor farms come in the form of enclosed pods that use the hydroponic grow method, meaning plant roots are submerged in a nutrient-enriched water supply and no soil is involved. Cloud-based software controls the temperature, watering schedule, and light and humidity levels of the farms, adjusting those elements based on plant type. 

There are two major benefits to this in-store approach to vertical farming. Zero pesticides are used in the grow process, and greens can be harvested onsite, reducing carbon emissions since food doesn’t have to be transported to the store from a distribution center. 

Better-tasting greens is another one of InFarm’s claims. By precisely adjusting light, temperature, water levels, and other elements, vertical farmers can create ideal growing “recipes” for each plant type meant to bring out the optimal amount of flavor.

Many vertical farming companies make this claim, along with those about reduced water usage and carbon footprint. What the indoor ag industry needs next is more public data backing these claims up. With other companies — notably Square Roots and Freight Farms — striking deals of their own to get vertical farms closer to food stores, more hard numbers will be needed to show us when, where, and how these high-tech farms can be most useful in the overall food system.

InFarm will launch a range of herbs at two Safeway stores in Vancouver this spring, according to the press release, and Empire will also put farms in stores across seven Canadian cities.

Gotham Greens Expands Its High-Tech Greenhouse Network to Baltimore

Indoor farming company Gotham Greens today announced the official opening of a new hydroponic greenhouse, this one outside Baltimore, Maryland. The 100,000-square-foot facility is the company’s seventh greenhouse in the U.S., and its first one to grow year-round produce, according to a press release from Gotham Greens. 

The launch of the Baltimore facility arrives on the heels of Gotham Greens’ first New England facility, which opened in Providence, Rhode Island at the very end of 2019. The company also operates locations in Brooklyn, Chicago, and Denver.

All of Gotham’s greenhouses use hydroponics, a method of growing plants without soil. Crops grow in trays (as opposed to the tower-like structure found in other hydroponic farms) and receive a constant stream of water enriched with nutrients that is soaked up by the plant roots. Proprietary software lets farms automate much of the plant monitoring and management, so that they can find the best “recipe” of temperature, humidity, and light levels needed for each crop.

Gotham Greens said in the press release that the new farm in Baltimore will grow “more than six million heads of lettuce annually,” which is roughly the same amount grown by other large-scale indoor farming operations, Kalera and Plenty among them. 

Millions of heads of greens grown throughout the year means a greater number of consumers around the country can access fresher produce harvested much more recently and closer to the store. But these warehouse-sized indoor farms are no longer the only indoor agtech operations supplying the consumer demand for local food. Companies like Freight Farms and Square Roots operate smaller farms housed inside shipping containers, some of which are located next door to major food distribution centers. Others, like InFarm, are going even more local by putting the farm in the grocery store.

There are also a number of efforts being made to bring indoor farming concepts right into the consumer home, though it’ll be a while before farms become standard kitchen appliances. Even when they do, it’s unlikely a consumer-focused farm from someone like LG would even compete directly with Gotham Greens, which serves businesses rather than consumers and grows produce in vastly larger quantities.

The new Gotham Greens farm in Baltimore will provide greens to restaurant and foodservice customers across 10 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S.

Rise Gardens Is on a Mission to Make the Smart Farm Part of the Everyman’s Kitchen

One question we’ve asked for a while here at The Spoon is whether vertical farms will eventually make their way into the average consumer’s home. Versions of these farms self-contained, temperature controlled smart gardens have existed for years now, but they’ve historically gotten the most adoption among startups and independent food producers selling to local retailers.

Of late, however, a number of companies have come to market with indoor-farming devices built not for industrial-grade production but for the average person’s home or apartment. Among them is Rise Gardens, a Chicago-based startup that makes an indoor farming system that looks like a piece of furniture, takes minutes to set up, and can be controlled remotely with a smartphone app.

Rise’s product, among others, is a far cry from some of the at-home farming concepts appliance-makers like GE and LG showed off at CES this year as they unveiled fridge-sized products meant to be built right into the kitchen cabinetry. But it does the same job, and, arguably, in a cheaper, more user-friendly way.

The Chicago-based Rise has been hard at work for the last couple of years making prototypes of its indoor farming device, a standalone console that can grow greens year-round and is small enough to function as another piece of furniture inside someone’s house. The company started selling its product to the U.S. and Canada markets in August of 2019.

Like other consumer-grade hydroponic farms, Rise Gardens’ device is a self-contained system that grows leafy greens in a temperature-controlled environment, with much of the work automated by technology. “If you just use our device without the app, it might still be four or five hours [of work] per week. That’s why we created the app,” says Blondet. “What the app is doing is automating things on the back end that a farmer would do.”

That includes calculating temperature, nutrition and pH levels, as well as determining when and how much to water the plants. Were a user to do this manually, Blondet says, they would need to perform some relatively complicated mathematics to get this kind of information. Rise Gardens’ app works with a sensor (“kind of like a Fitbit but for plants”) to automate such calculations, so that a user simply gets notified when it’s time to re-up the water or nutrient supply, or harvest the plants.

Rise Gardens’ farms are also modular in that they can be added to over time if a user wants more space to grow greens. The console itself, where the farm lives, resembles a standalone cabinet and is assembled by the user. A single-level farm (see below) is roughly the size of an entry-way table and comes with 12 plant pods. Users who want to grow more plants over time can add second and third levels, so that the largest system resembles a bookshelf.


Blondet notes that one of Rise Gardens’ goals in coming up with the product design was to have it fit inside a consumer’s home as easily as most other appliances. In other words, it’s just another piece of furniture, albeit a highly functional one. “We didn’t want to disrupt the home, we want to fit in it,” he says. He adds that an earlier version of the Rise Gardens farm more resembled a refrigerator. As LG showed us at CES this month, fridge-like designs are coming. But not yet. “Right now, no one is going to remodel their kitchen to fit this,” Blondet says of the fridge-style size and design. Rise chose its current design in part to appeal to consumers who would like to keep their greens hyper-local but can’t or won’t remodel a home just to do so.

Rise is one of many companies taking this approach, which seems to be fast becoming a good middle ground between a built-in appliance and a bag of lettuce from the grocery store. Aspara, n.thing’s Planty Cube, Seedo, Verdeat . . . the list goes on, and it’s getting lengthier each month. Another appliance-maker, Miele, is also getting involved in the space, having acquired German startup Agrilution and its wine-fridge-sized Plantcube product in 2019.

As more consumers get familiar with the concept, Blondet suggests a future in which these kinds of systems are ubiquitous, where seed packs can be bought at a grocery retailer like Whole Foods (right now they have to be special ordered), and every kitchen will be designed to accommodate some type of indoor farm. 

By way of example, he mentions the dishwasher. “Forty years ago, no one had a dishwasher. And then slowly but surely the dishwasher made its way into people’s lives,” he says. “I think [indoor farming] is the type of thing that will slowly but surely make its way into the design of the kitchen.”

CES 2020: The Planty Cube Aims to Make Vertical Farming More Modular and Automated

While many questions remain around exactly what role vertical farming will play in the future of agriculture, there are a few things we can count on with certainty. These indoor farms will become more and more automated over time, as well as modular. They will also be more user-friendly to the average consumer or small business, something evident by the number of indoor farming offerings at CES 2020 this week. 

Among those offerings is the Planty Cube, a smart hydroponic indoor farm made by a Seoul, South Korea-based IoT company called n.thing. The grow system is modular enough to work in a number of different settings, from an apartment to a cafeteria, and automated enough that pretty much anyone can operate it.

Like other vertical farms out there, the Planty Cube environment contains rows and shelves of planters stacked inside a shipping container. Plants rely not on soil and human hands cultivating them, but instead on a computerized system that delivers the right “recipe” of nutrients, water, and light from LEDs to help photosynthesis. Humans have little involvement with the actual plants during the grow process. Most of the work on the farm, such as adjusting the LEDs, controlling temperature and humidity, and monitoring plant health, is done by the Planty Cube system, which uses sensors to collect data on the plants and can be controlled remotely by a smartphone.

Leo Kim, n.thing’s CEO, came up with the idea for the farm after creating an IoT-enabled smart pot called “Planty.” From there, the company developed the Planty Square, a modular system made up of multiple capsules called Pickcells, each roughly two inches in width, length, and depth, that contain the seeds of each plant. Users can connect multiple Squares (“like a Lego block,” says Kim) to grow larger crops, and enough of these put together make up the Planty Cube farm.

The Planty Cube system relies heavily on data from farming logs, which are fed back into a database known as the CUBE Cloud and analyzed with AI to help farmers determine optimal growing conditions for each crop. As the user adds more Squares to the farm with new and different crops, this real time, cloud-based system makes it easier for the user to manage the overall farm, even remotely.

While a number of companies now operate automated vertical farms that grow leafy greens, most of these (Kalera, Plenty, Intelligent Growth Systems) are better suited to large warehouse settings that produce millions of heads of lettuce. Planty Cube’s modular and user-friendly nature make it a more apt candidate for places like schools, hospital cafeterias, and university dining halls — all locations that would benefit from having freshly harvested greens onsite.

Planty Cube nabbed a Best of Innovation award for CES this year. If you’re currently milling about the show floor in Vegas, drop by n.thing’s booth to see the Planty Cube in action.

LG Will Unveil an Indoor Farm for the Consumer Kitchen at CES 2020

With CES right around the corner, the announcements are pouring in for new gadgets and products to be on display at the Las Vegas show, including those that will change the way we cook, eat, and think about our food. 

Appliance-maker LG is the latest. The company announced this week it will unveil a smart gardening appliance for the consumer kitchen at CES 2020, one that uses advanced lighting, temperature, and water control to let consumers grow greens year-round inside their kitchens.

The as-yet unnamed appliance takes many of the functions found in commercial-scale indoor farming and applies them to a device specifically made for the average consumer. Software, controlled via the user’s smartphone determines the precise “recipe” of LED lights, air, and water the plants need and when that recipe should change based on the time of day. The goal is to replicate “optimal outdoor conditions by precisely matching the temperature inside the insulated cabinet with the time of day,” according to the announcement from LG.

This kind of control means users can grow herbs and leafy greens year-round if they choose, and with considerably more ease than they would have with an outdoor garden. Not only does a controlled indoor cabinet mean no pests (or pesticides for that matter), the companion app basically offers a step-by-step guide each day for growing, monitoring, and harvesting plants. It’s not unlike the many guided cooking apps out there offering granular advice every step of the way so that experts and less experienced users alike can use the tool successfully. 

LG’s new appliance marks the company’s first foray into the indoor gardening space — and possibly a new trend for the future of the home kitchen. Up to now, smart indoor farms for consumers have been mostly standalone devices that don’t necessarily have any connection with the home’s main kitchen. From the pictures, LG’s appliance can be built right into the cabinetry and modular enough to fit many different kitchen formats. 

LG isn’t the only company exploring how to do this. At the beginning of December, appliance-maker Miele acquired the assets of Agrilution, whose Plantcube indoor vertical farm can be directly built into home kitchens.

It will likely be a long time before we see such devices become standard parts of all kitchens. That idea of building indoor farming into the design of the kitchen was a concept explored in depth at SKS 2019 this past October. It looks expensive, time consuming, and complex right now, but more major appliance-makers entering the space means we’re slowly but surely inching towards the day when the cost of such systems can come down and the average consumer might someday see at-home smart farming become a reality. 

Gotham Greens Makes Moves Into New England With Another High-tech Vertical Farm

Brooklyn, NY-based agtech company Gotham Greens marked its first move into the New England region today with the grand opening and first harvest of a new high-tech farming facility in Providence, R.I.

The company said in a press release that its new 100,000 sq. ft. facility, formerly a General Electric lighting factory, will grow 6 million heads of lettuce annually. Gotham will supply those greens and herbs to retailers like Whole Foods, Star Market, and other regional grocery stores. 

Gotham, which was founded in 2009 and has raised $30.1 million to date, operates a network of greenhouses across the U.S. The company uses the hydroponic technique, which means crops grow in trays without soil and soak up nutrient-enriched water through their roots. Like a growing number of indoor farming operations, Gotham’s system is fairly automated, with software controlling the amount of light and nutrients crops receive as well as the temperature of the greenhouses. 

The Providence greenhouse had its ribbon-cutting ceremony today. The farm is Gotham’s first location in the New England area.

Gotham is just one of many companies who’ve lately announced large-scale indoor farming facilities that rely on high-tech systems to grow and harvest heads of lettuce. Though Plenty shelved its plans to build out a farm in the Seattle area, it did recently announce its intention for one in the middle of Los Angeles. Kalera broke ground on a massive facility outside Orlando, FL that will grow 5 million heads of lettuce annually. And this year, Square Roots partnered with Gordon Food Service to build vertical farms onsite at many of the latter’s North American distribution centers.

Gotham’s new facility joins its existing roster of farms, which includes three in the NYC area, two in the Midwest, and one in the Denver.

Farmshelf Gets Angel Investment From Singapore’s she1K, Liberty Produce Launches UK Vertical Farming Project

Angel network she1K has syndicated an early-stage investment in Farmshelf, according to an article published today on AgFunder News. Singapore-based she1K, which is known for its global female executive leadership, did not disclose financial terms of the deal. Farmshelf is the third company to join its portfolio 

Whereas many companies in the vertical farming space right now have massive indoor facilities aiming to produce millions of heads of leafy greens, Farmshelf differentiates itself by staying focused on smaller spaces like supermarkets, offices, hotels, and restaurants. Its bookcase-sized farm grows leafy greens and herbs using a combination of custom LEDs, sensors, and software that deliver water, nutrients, and the optimal amount of light needed for each crop. The system, which can simply be plugged into a wall and connected to WiFi, is already at a number of restaurants, hotels, and other spaces, including NYC chain Tender Greens, Marriott Marquis Times Square, and the Condé Nast offices. 

The Farmshelf system is currently available to businesses in parts of Texas and California, and will be available to customers “in most major markets” in 2020.

Farmshelf isn’t the only indoor farming initiative kicking off December with big news. Across the Atlantic, agtech company Liberty Produce has finally launched its vertical farming project that looks to improve both crop yield and operational costs for vertical farming through improved, more automated tech.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Liberty Produce has partnered with several entities for the project. While most were not disclosed, a major one is Crop Health and Protection (CHAP), a network of scientists, farmers, researchers, academics, and businesses developing new ways to use technology to improve the farming system in the UK. Work on the Liberty Produce project is being done at CHAP’s Fine Phenotyping Lab at Rothamsted Research in the UK, with experts experimenting with plants’ responses to different light intensities and studying the best LED “recipes” for crops.

“There’s lots we don’t know about growing plants in this artificial environment and we’re not giving them optimal conditions,” Liberty Produce founder Zeina Chapman told The Spoon earlier this year. “With lighting, there isn’t an option to control it in a way that maximizes plant growth. So we might be putting plants under stress.”

Liberty also wants to use more automation to make the concept of vertical farming easier for the anyone, something Farmshelf also appears to be striving for with its plug-in-and-go system.

It’s an admirable goal to strive for, especially if it can get more locally grown produce into the hands of more cafeterias, universities, local businesses, and, eventually, individual homes.

The test — and something we’ll hear more about in 2020 — will be whether the vertical farming industry can find a way to do this cost effectively. There’s plenty of hype right now around the promises of vertical farming. As to whether it can actually become an everyday reality for the everyman, the jury is still out.

Element Farms Unveils a High-tech Greenhouse Facility to Grow More Spinach Indoors

When it comes to leafy greens, spinach may get the superlative for Most Popular, but it’s also one of the most difficult to grow — especially indoors. So it’s no small accomplishment that indoor farming company Element Farms announced a 70,000 square foot greenhouse facility in New Jersey to grow spinach year-round using a combination of proprietary software and hydroponics.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Element Farms will begin operations at the new farm “in the coming weeks” and will produce “over half a million pounds each year of pesticide-free baby spinach” as well as a variety of other greens, arugula, beet greens, and pea shoots among them.

As Element cofounder and CEO Serdar Mizrakci explained earlier this year, spinach is tough to grow because it is prone to disease, particularly in high-density indoor environments. Element combats this by adding what Mizrakci calls “another layer of precision control” to the plants’ grow process. The company uses a combination of hydroponics along with a dynamic lighting algorithm that combines natural sunlight with high-capacity LEDs. Meanwhile, customized harvesting equipment automates and speeds up some of the grow process.

The new greenhouse facility will use similar automation for many day-to-day farming tasks. And according to the press release, the facility is the first of multiple greenhouse projects. Though Element hasn’t named specific locations for future, the company is currently looking at two other states as sites for future facilities.

The agricultural industry is grappling with both labor shortages and the fact that our soil is dying, so it’s not surprising that more and more companies are exploring the benefits (and challenges) of automated indoor farming. In August, Kalera broke ground on a massive vertical farm facility outside Orlando, FL that will automate many parts of the grow process. In the UK, Intelligent Growth Solutions recently raised an additional £1.6 million in funding for its “farm in a box” system, while Australian agtech company Vertical Farm Systems says it can take plants from seeding stage to fully grown in just 28 days with its automated system.

Element Farms, meanwhile, also emphasizes the “local” aspect of its business. The new facility will be on direct delivery routes to cities in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. In the coming months, the company plans to expand its PureSpinach products to more ShopRite stores in the Northeastern U.S.

MetoMotion Raises $1.5M Seed Round for Its Greenhouse Robotics Worker

Israel-based MetoMotion announced today it has raised a $1.5 million seed round for its multipurpose robotics system called GRoW (Greenhouse Robotics Worker) (via AgFunder).

There aren’t a lot of details on specifics of the funding round. According to AgFunder, the team behind GRoW has only said that “a leading Netherlands-based company in the greenhouse industry” led the round. This brings MetoMotion’s total funding to date to $2.7 million.

Even if GRoW’s investors are mysterious, its overall purpose in making indoor agriculture more efficient is obvious. According to the MetoMotion site, GRoW is a robotic worker that can perform labor-intensive tasks in the greenhouse, like harvesting. The fully automated vehicle uses a combination of 3D vision systems and machine vision algorithms to identify and locate produce that’s ready for picking (its first crop is greenhouse tomatoes). Custom-designed robotic arms then pick the produce, and a proprietary harvesting end-effector protects against damage to fruits during the harvesting process.

The vehicle is also capable of a number of other functions, like pruning, monitoring, and even pollinating crops. According to the MetoMotion website, GRoW can save up to 50 percent in harvest-related costs.

Expectations around the promise of indoor farming are ramping up right now as farmers, governments, and industries alike are looking at alternative methods to supplement traditional agriculture. At the same time, there’s a major shortage of skilled labor for greenhouses. Therefore it’s not surprising that MetoMotion has some friendly competition in the greenhouse robotics space. A company called iUnu makes Luna, a robot that uses cameras, sensors, and computer vision to scoot about the greenhouse and monitor crop welfare. Cambridge Consultants, meanwhile, has a robot called Hank that uses a sensory system embedded into pneumatic fingers to mimic human hands, which makes it ideal for harvesting delicate fruits and veggies.

Since details of MetoMotion’s seed round are scant, we’re not yet sure what the company will put the money towards, or when we can expect to see GRoW distributed. Israel-based Trendlines, MetoMotion’s parent company, says a fully functional version of GRoW has been successfully alpha tested in a greenhouse setting.

Vertical Farming Heavyweight AeroFarms Raises $100M in Fresh Funding

Vertical farming startup AeroFarms has raised a $100 million Series E round to expand its warehouse facilities that hold massive indoor farms, and explore new types of produce it can grow in those facilities, according to The Financial Times. The round was led by Ingka Group (IKEA’s parent comany), with participation from existing investors Wheatsheaf and ADM Capital as well as Mission Point Capital, GSR Ventures, and AllianceBernstein. The round brings AeroFarms total funding to $238 million.

The company previously worked with IKEA Group, as well as Momofuku Group’s David Chang, to close a $40 million Series D round in 2017. And in 2019 alone, AeroFarms has doubled down on its efforts to spread the use of vertical farming, including closing a partnership with Singapore Airlines to provide fresh greens in flight and landing on FastCompany’s 2019 Most Innovative Companies list.

AeroFarms is also part of a group called the Precision Indoor Plants Consortium, which is working to develop crops specifically meant for indoor growing. The group focuses on optimizing flavor and other elements about the plants themselves, rather than the hardware or software used to grow them.

But with a vertical farming market predicted to grow to 9.96 billion worldwide by 2025, AeroFarms isn’t the only one looking to move beyond leafy greens. In June, Plenty, who previously received a $200 million investment from Softbank, announced it too was looking to add things like strawberries, tomatoes, and potentially more exotic plants to its grow systems. Freight Farms, whose Leafy Green Machine has helped pioneer the concept of farming in a shipping container, also went into detail earlier this year about how it’s rearchitecting its own farming concept to in part accommodate growing a bigger variety of crops.

Will we see carrots and root vegetables making their way to shipping containers and warehouses in the near future? Probably not right away, as it’s expensive and complex from both a space and cost perspective to grow these heartier crop varieties. But the level of interest AeroFarms, Plenty, and others now express in growing more than just kale suggests we’re well on our way to that point. A hefty investment doesn’t hurt, either.

Intelligent Growth Solutions Raises £5.4M Series A Round for its Automated Vertical Farm

Dundee, Scotland-based vertical farming system Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) announced today it has raised a £5.4 million Series A funding round led by U.S.-based S2G Ventures, with participation from online venture capital firm AgFunder and the Scottish Investment Bank (SIB). The round accounts for IGS’ total funding to date.

As do an increasing number of vertical farming systems on the market today, IGS’ platform is a so-called plug-and-play system, meaning the user interfaces with software which automates much of the grow process for a variety of crops. (Admittedly, it’s still mostly leafy greens at this point.) IGS’ patented, IoT-enabled system includes dynamic LEDs that can automatically adjust themselves to suit crop needs, trays that are loaded and moved by machines, and the ability to water and monitor crops via software — all with the press of a button.

Here’s the farm in action:

Explore IGS' automated vertical farming system

The farm, which is located just outside the coastal city of Dundee, is Scotland’s first vertical farm in operation. According to the press release, the new funds will go towards creating more jobs at IGS in areas like software development, robotics, engineering, and automation. Some of the funds will also go towards product development and marketing.

Many companies are currently bringing versions of the automated vertical farm to the fold. Earlier this year an Australian agtech company simply called Vertical Farming Systems raised $1 million for its automated indoor farm system. Liberty Produce, based in the U.K., has a “one-stop-shop” vertical farm which anyone can operate, even those without a technical or agricultural background.

And that’s part of what’s at the center of these automated farming systems. By making it easier to plant, monitor, and harvest crops, vertical farming companies around the world are hoping to take some of the guesswork out of the process and in turn deliver more consistent crop yields and higher-quality greens, saving on time and labor costs in the process. Because of current limitations around scalability and the kinds of crops farmers can grow at scale, vertical farming won’t replace traditional agriculture anytime soon, but automated farms like those from IGS will play an important role in the future of farming, and we’ll see a lot more systems like this in the near future.