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The company was founded in 2010 by CEO Brad McNamara and COO Jon Friedman and debuted with the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container-the Leafy Green Machine-with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food
FREMONT, CA: Containerized vertical farming startup Freight Farms raised USD 15 million in a Series B funding round led by Ospraie Ag Science; an investment firm committed to supporting sustainable solutions that improve the quality of life for both farmers and society. The Series B round was also participated by existing investor Spark Capital, taking the company's total raised capital to USD 28 million.
"It's a big step forward for the industry when financial markets recognize and champion the value of creating a distributed food system," said Brad McNamara, Freight Farms CEO. "Aligned on mission-driven growth as a team, there is a massive opportunity before us to scale across global markets, propelling meaningful technology that's already doing good." Freight Farms' Greenery produces over 500 varieties of crops like calendula at a commercial scale all over the year, all while using 99.8 percent less water than traditional agriculture. The company makes use of a system where it places four rows of panels on a flexible moving rack system, which houses over 8,000 living plants at once. Using this method, the company creates a dense canopy of fresh crops.
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The proceeds from the new round will be used to advance the technical potential of Freight Farms' platform through continued innovation, with new services designed to benefit its growing global network of farmers and corporate partners. "Freight Farms has redefined vertical farming and made decentralizing the food system something that's possible and meaningful right now, not in the 'future of food,'" said Jason Mraz, President of Ospraie Ag Science. "Full traceability, high nutrition without herbicides and pesticides, year-round availability - these are elements that should be inherent to food sourcing. Freight Farms' Greenery makes it possible to meet this burgeoning global demand from campuses, hospitals, municipal institutions and corporate businesses, while also enabling small business farmers to meet these needs for their customers." The investment round comes soon after Freight Farms' strategic national partnership with Sodexo to grow food onsite at educational and corporate campuses nationwide, which will support ongoing contributions to collaborative research projects and partnerships.
The company was founded in 2010 by CEO Brad McNamara and COO Jon Friedman and debuted with the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container-the Leafy Green Machine-with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food.
"With the Greenery and farmhand, we've created an infrastructure that lowers the barrier of entry into food production, an industry that's historically been difficult to get into," said Jon Friedman, Freight Farms COO. "With this platform, we're also able to harness and build upon a wider set of technologies including cloud IoT, automation, and machine learning, while enabling new developments in plant science for future generations."
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