On Wednesday, Bowery Farming, the largest indoor farming company in the United States, announced that it has received a $150 million credit facility led by private equity giant KKR.
The company said it plans to use the funds to speed the expansion of its smart indoor farm network beyond the East Coast region. The fundraise brings its total debt and equity capital raised to more than $647 million, representing the strongest institutional backing in the Controlled Environmental Agriculture industry. KKR’s credit investment follows Bowery’s $325 million Series C funding in 2021, a round led by Fidelity that was the largest-ever private market equity capital raise for a vertical farming company.
Bowery Farming announced concurrently that it is building two new state-of-the-art farms serving the Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas metro areas. According to the company, the farms are expected to create more than 200 year-round green jobs across both markets and provide locally grown produce to a population of 20 million and 16 million within a 200-mile radius of Locust Grove, Georgia and Arlington, Texas, respectively. Both farms are expected to open in the first quarter of 2023.
The two new farms, leveraging billions of data points collected from previous farms, will feature industry-leading tech innovations resulting in efficiency improvements to all elements of the grow environment, from LED lighting to water recapture to climate control, ultimately improving quality and yield. These farms represent a recommitment to Bowery’s sustainability goals; the company plans to use power from 100 percent renewable sources.
“We’re thrilled to announce our expansion beyond the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions,” said Bowery Farming Founder and CEO Irving Fain. “KKR’s support is a testament to the proven success of our business model and a strong vote of confidence in our technology leadership and ability to address critical challenges in the current agricultural system. There is enormous economic opportunity that comes with supporting our mission to democratize access to local, pesticide-free Protected Produce, and now we are ready to continue our growth more rapidly.”
The new financing will also provide resources to accelerate advancements in farm design and its smart farming technology platform, BoweryOS, which the company describes as the “central nervous system” of the business. The platform integrates software, hardware, sensors, computer vision systems, AI, and robotics to orchestrate and automate all of its operations.
“We are excited to support Bowery’s pioneering efforts in vertical farming, which are directly contributing to the resiliency of our food supply,” said KKR Director Michelle Hour. “We believe that Bowery has the right commercial model, technology and team to capitalize on the rapidly growing consumer demand for sustainably-sourced food, and we look forward to helping the company continue to innovate and scale to benefit communities across the United States.”
The news follows a robust year of growth for Bowery in 2021, with milestones including a more than doubling of its annual revenues, and the opening of FarmX, a state-of-the-art plant science innovation hub in Kearny New Jersey that expanded the company’s R&D capacity by nearly 300 percent. The company also converted a former industrial site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania into a technologically advanced smart farm, and expanded its distribution to more than 800 stores in the U.S. through a partnership with Wakefern, the nation’s largest retailer-owned cooperative, including brands such as Gourmet Garage, Shoprite, Fairway, The Fresh Grocer, and Dearborn Market.
In addition to Fidelity, current equity investors in Bowery include Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, GV (formerly known as Google Ventures), General Catalyst, GGV Capital, First Round Capital, and individuals including Jeff Wilke, Tom Colicchio, José Andrés, and David Barber of Blue Hill.
