iFarm Project—which develops modular automated farms to produce natural vegetables, salads, and berries year-round—has raised $1 million with VC fund Gagarin Capital as the lead investor. Other participants were Sergey Ryzhikov, CEO of 1C-Bitrix; Sergey Ambrosov, member of the Board of Directors of the Russian Association of Franchising and former CEO of Invitro; and Artem Rudi, co-founder of Atlas clinics and the Uniscan Research company.
The technology behind the project’s vertical farms and year-round greenhouses was created by iFarm. Aimed at small and medium enterprises, the company makes it possible to get urban crop production running quickly via easy-to-use plug-and-play modules.
Growing recipes can be downloaded from a centralised database, making it possible to grow goods at the press of a button, without having to study agriculture. The modules also include seeds, fertilisers, and electronics, all optimised for an urban environment, and require significantly less electricity, water, and fertiliser than conventional greenhouse methods.
Farm units can be set up in empty warehouses, workshops, basements, or on the roofs of buildings. Each farm is connected to a cloud-based management system, which sets the growing conditions, and a unified network of sales distribution. No pesticides are used and crops are not chemically treated for long-term storage because delivery to sales outlets come within an hour of harvest.
The project was founded in June 2017. By the end of 2018, the company had formed a team of over 30 professionals in agriculture, IT, engineering and sales, built five greenhouses and vertical farms, opened its own shop, and set up partnerships with restaurants and food retail. In 2019, the company plans to enter the international market, which the funding will allow, in addition to the further development of its technology.
“The investments from this round will be used to develop technology and expand our team, including our engineering, construction and agro projects teams, as well as to pilot the technology on the European market,” explained Alexander Lyskovsky, iFarm founder and CEO.
