A Bristol-based indoor farming tech company has secured £2.35million in seed funding.
LettUs Grow aims to reduce the waste and carbon footprint of fresh produce by encouraging ‘vertical urban farming’, where food can be grown near its point of consumption.
The company’s indoor farms need no fertile land to operate, use zero pesticides and instead of using soil, plant roots are suspended in a nutrient-dense mist.
LettUs Grow says using its methods it has been able to show growth rate increases of more than 70 per cent across a range of crops, compared to current vertical farming methods.
Charlie Guy, co-founder and managing director of LettUs Grow, says the latest investment will allow the company to build its second state-of-the-art aeroponic research centre, scale existing technology, deliver on a growing sales pipeline and accelerate new product lines to market.
He said: “This investment gives us a platform to really 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 against the effects of climate change and ever-increasing extreme weather events.”
The investment round was led by Longwall Venture Partners LLP.
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Rebecca Todd, investment director at Longwall Ventures, added: “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.”
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.
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