July 2, 2018

Greenhouse farming leader BrightFarms has raised a $55 million Series D led by Cox Enterprises, and including Catalysts Investors, WP Global Partners, and NGEN Partners.

Based in New York, BrightFarms is tapping into the farm-to-table consumer movement – financing, building, and operating local state-of-the-art commercially scaleable greenhouses farms in partnership with supermarkets, cities, vendors, and investors. In doing so, BrightFarms is able to establish a food production model that eliminates waste, time, cost, and distance from the supply chain.

BrightFarms’ system provides a reliable year-round source of innovative produce varieties to Kroger, Ahold, Albertsons, and Walmart retailers that have a one-week freshness advantage and offer consumers a higher level of traceability and safety.

Currently the company operates greenhouse farms in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, with a farm being launched in Ohio this summer,  and another being launched in Texas in early 2019. Each farm can produce fresh food using no pesticides, 90 percent less land, 80 percent less water, and 95 percent less shipping fuel than traditional field-growing suppliers.

BrightFarms is definitely tapping into a segment ripe for disruption. Approximately 90 percent of the salad greens consumed in the U.S. is sourced from California and Arizona – two sites that not only need to secure long-distance shipping, resulting in older produce on the market shelf, but are both regions facing challenging climate scenarios.

Research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) determined that local food sales in 2014 topped a value of $12 billion, and are on pace to reach a value of $20 billion by 2019, according to TechCrunch.

These trends have translated into larger rounds and bigger facilities for indoor ag startups. This Series D follows a $30.1 million Series C raised by BrightFarms in September 2016 led by Catalyst Investors and including Chicago-based WP Global Partners and New York-based NGEN Partners.

Much more recently, in June of this year, another New York-based urban greenhouse innovator, Gotham Greens, successfully raised a $29 million Series C, bringing total funding for the company to $45 million to date.

Only days later, U.S.-based Crop One Holdings, a global-leading vertical farmer and owner of the FreshBox Farms brand, and Emirates Flight Catering, a subsidiary of the Emirates Group, announced a $40 million joint venture to build the largest vertical farming operation in the world in Dubai.

For investors, committing capital to indoor ag operations not only ties them into the food demand narrative, but opens to them an investment that allows them to back startups focused on sustainability and social responsibility.

“Since our founding in 1898, Cox has embraced innovative, game-changing businesses in their earliest stages like radio, television, cable TV and broadband,” said Dallas Clement, CEO of Cox Enterprises. “BrightFarms presents a unique opportunity to reshape agriculture production and drive positive environmental change by growing in local, controlled environment agriculture farms. We are excited about the opportunity to support BrightFarms’ growth as it scales into a national brand.”

“Cox is a long-standing, successful investor and operator, with a proven track record across multiple industries, and a long-time leader in corporate sustainability,” said Paul Lightfoot, BrightFarms CEO. “We have a bold vision to change the way Americans get their produce and this round will help us achieve our goals.”

-Lynda Kiernan