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indoor garden

September 11, 2018

Natufia Raises $1.2M Seed for its Indoor Garden System

Natufia, an Estonian startup that makes smart indoor food growing systems, announced last week that it closed a $1.2 million seed round led by Butterfly Ventures, Techstars and the Dubai-based family office of Ginco Investments.

Judging from the press announcement and the company’s website, Natufia builds self-contained, vertical indoor systems that use seed pods for growing leafy greens and herbs. The hardware contains sensors that monitor factors like temperature and humidity so you can create optimal growing conditions. It even offers three musical playlists to help keep your plants calm and relaxed (we guess?).

There’s no pricing information on the Natufia, and the website just says to find a retailer near you (though doesn’t say where) and that you can pre-order one online for an unspecified amount of money.

Natufia is among a slew of companies creating smart, seed pod-based indoor grow systems that allow people to harvest their own food. The company says its system can be used either by consumers or in a professional setting. SproutsIO and Ava Byte are countertop devices for the home, while Verdical, which is aimed at commercial spaces, is more similar in size to the Natufia.

These systems haven’t really come to market yet, so we don’t know yet what consumer adoption will be like. SproutsIO was supposed to ship this summer, but its website still only lets you sign up for updates on availability. In an update, Ava said it will ship to pre-orders this October, and since winning the Startup Showcase at last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit, Verdical has kept pretty quiet.

June 6, 2018

AVA Technologies Raises $2.6M for Its Countertop Gardening System

AVA Technologies, maker of the AVA Byte countertop smart gardening system, has raised a $2.6 million seed round (no pun intended) led by Vanedge Capital, according to BetaKit.

The AVA Byte is an all-in-one connected gardening appliance that uses a combination of soil-less seed pods, smart sensors, artificial intelligence and a smartphone app to guide you through the process of growing herbs, mushrooms and even tomatoes indoors. AVA CEO Valerie Song pitched her company as a Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase finalist last year. You can see her presentation here:

This looks to be the first institutional round of funding for AVA, which has raised more than $130,000 on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. To date, the company has raised $2.9 million.

An update from Song on the AVA Indiegogo page says that to celebrate the funding, AVA is giving away a free HD camera for their growing systems to all of their backers. She went on to say that the AVA Byte will start shipping this October.

The indoor smart garden space is certainly sprouting (Ed. note: Sorry). SproutsIO offers much of the same functionality as AVA and is supposed to ship this summer. Then there’s AeroGarden, which is available now.

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