In an era when many vertical farming startups chased scale at all costs, Anu went the other way. The Indiana-based ag-tech company built its business around small, distributed systems, each designed to integrate hardware, seed pods, and AI in a seamless loop. According to CEO Scott Massey, that decision has made all the difference.
"We embraced that vision largely before many others in the industry did, which meant we had a head start on understanding what technical challenges needed to be specifically resolved to have a very high-efficiency, modular decentralized vertical farming model, and built technologies around that."
From university lab to user experience
Massey credits Purdue University for the technical foundation and for instilling a critical habit: always start with the user. "Something I think Purdue did an incredibly good job with was teaching me to articulate our business, to understand the problem of the end user, to start with questions like what's working, what's not working, and what could be the best-case scenario?"
In his view, the ability to explain what a system does and why it matters should extend far beyond the investor pitch. "The pitch never ends," he added. "The entrepreneur's ability to pitch continues on the drawing board, to engineers and tactical teams, to investors, and even to the consumer. Understanding those very particular, nuanced details that define a great and a bad user experience, and developing a solution that is consistently great."
Building from the bottom up
Anu's growing systems are based on its Pure Produce container, a 20-foot upcycled shipping container outfitted with proprietary rotary aeroponics and designed for plug-and-grow simplicity. The unit supports up to 3,920 plants and is optimized for minimal resource use.
Supporting the hardware is Anu's line of seed pods, which are biodegradable consumables preloaded with nutrients and tailored to specific crops. This closed-loop pod system ensures environmental harmony inside the container while simplifying operations for end users.
"You cannot put the seed pod before the hardware growing system, or the software before those two steps," Massey said. "We had to spend a great deal of time getting the hardware right so that when we began to develop the seed pod, the consumable that supports the business model around the hardware, we had a reliable system in place."
Only once that hardware-pod relationship was stable could Anu begin layering in its Grow AI, the intelligent monitoring and control system that personalizes and optimizes plant growth conditions over time. "The greater the amount of user experience, the better the system gets," said Massey. "Understanding that sequential order, from hardware to consumable to software, was so critical for us."
Closing the loop
Massey sees Anu's closed-loop seed pod model as more than just a supply strategy. It's a data opportunity, with the potential to link plant genetics, environmental feedback, and consumer preferences into a unified health ecosystem.
"Imagine a seed company's ability to know what flavor and taste satisfaction is in real time and on an ongoing, longitudinal basis," he said. "Imagine if your healthcare provider can understand the amount of anthocyanin or secondary nutrients such as antioxidants [in your food], how much more informed of a decision they can make for you and all people." This framing of food as a proactive health tool is central to Anu's long-term vision.
Partnerships that scale distribution
To advance this mission, Anu has forged several strategic partnerships. In 2025, the company announced a manufacturing collaboration with Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana, enabling local production of its seed pods and contributing to regional workforce development.
Anu also teamed up with ekō Solutions, a modular housing and sustainability subsidiary of Land Betterment Corporation, to commercialize and distribute its Pure Produce container farms. The goal is to deploy fully integrated grow systems to institutions such as schools, hospitals, and military bases, bringing food production closer to where it's needed most.
Ball State University Students inside the ekō Solutions and anu Pure Produce Container Farm
A different path
While much of the vertical farming world chased centralization and economies of scale, Anu doubled down on proximity, deploying small-footprint systems near the point of consumption and optimizing for efficiency, not size. "For most of the time that we've grown this business, there has been an increased focus broadly in the industry to develop bigger and bigger vertical farms," Massey said. "Yet very few of them remain in business or even profitable."
That divergence, what some might have seen as a risk early on, now appears increasingly insightful. For aspiring ag-tech entrepreneurs, Massey offers a simple but critical piece of advice: "Start with the problem that you want to solve, and understand it within the context of a broader picture."
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For more information:
anu
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www.growanu.com
Purdue University 
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business.purdue.edu