The New York-based company raised $50 million in Series A funding, led by SPARX Group’s Mirai Creation Fund II , to expand its farming footprint outside of Manhattan and invest in further R&D of the strawberry and other flowering fruits, co-founder and CEO Hiroki Koga told Crunchbase News. Existing investors in the round include Sony Innovation Fund, PKSHA Technology, Social Starts and angel investors.
Koga and Brendan Somerville started the company in 2017 and have raised $55 million to date, which includes an earlier seed round, Koga said. “In the seed stage, we were focused on R&D in growing strawberries, and we have figured out how to do it at scale, and now we want to do it at a larger scale,” Koga added. “We will build additional facilities and keep investing in R&D and our team.”
Currently, the company’s operations are in New York, but Oishii, which means “delicious” in Japanese, intends to expand domestically and internationally. It is eyeing large metropolitan areas across the United States, as well as the Middle East and Asia, he said.
The concept of indoor farming was pioneered in Japan some 20 years ago, Koga said. Most indoor farming operations stick to leafy greens because they are easier to grow, but Oishii started with strawberries, a more sophisticated crop. It introduced its Omakase Berry in 2018, which is an artisanal Japanese varietal, known for its sweetness, aroma and creamy texture. It was the first time the berry was ever grown in the United States, he added.
Read more at Crunchbase (C. Hall)