AgroUrbana, a vertical farming company in Latin America, closed a Series A financing round for US $4 million, led by the venture capital and impact investment fund Kayyak Ventures. Others include the CLIN fund managed by Chile Global Ventures, the venture capital area of Fundación Chile, and family offices linked to the food, retail, financial, and real estate industries.
"These funds will allow us to build the first large-scale vertical farming plant in Latin America and thus consolidate our position," explains AgroUrbana founder and CEO Cristián Sjögren. "It's about producing more and better with less, offering a new category of food through a sustainable way of growing the best vegetables locally, with the smallest environmental footprint possible, every day and all year round."
Founded in 2018 by Cristián Sjögren and Pablo Bunster, AgroUrbana produces vegetables in vertically arranged layers, using precise spectrum programmed lighting, in a hydroponic growing medium, controlling their nutrition in climate-controlled spaces throughout the year.
Evelyn Von Bischhoffshausen, General Partner at Kayyak Ventures, explains that the potential of the vertical farming business is significant, considering the accelerated effects of climate change on agricultural production. This new way of doing agriculture is expected to grow at rates of 25% per year over the next 5 years.
AgroUrbana has successfully developed its sales channels, which today include supermarket chains Cencosud and Walmart, HORECA, and a B2C model by subscription, responding to a market that increasingly rewards quality, traceability, and sustainability.
"We are developing a new type of agriculture, in this new stage we will use only renewable energy sources to fuel the production of superior quality food, available 365 days a year. Our DNA is to produce more with less at a fair price, with the lowest possible impact" explains Pablo Bunster, founder of AgroUrbana.
For more information:
AgroUrbana
www.agrourbana.ag