The Series C funding round valued Bowery at $2.3 billion.

Bowery Farming, the largest vertical farming company in the U.S., announced its Series C raise of $300 million at a valuation of $2.3 billion. Led by Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, the round saw follow-on investment from existing investors GV (formerly Google Ventures), General Catalyst, GGV Capital, Temasek, and Groupe Artémis (Pinault-owned). New investors included Amplo and Gaingels, a fund representing the LGBTQ community and allies. (PR Newswire)

The round is a record for private fundraising by an indoor farming company to date. It brings up Bowery’s total funding to $472 million.

Interestingly, several plant-based eating advocates also invested in the latest round, including Lewis Hamilton, Chris Paul, and Natalie Portman, as well as chef and hunger advocate José Andrés and singer-songwriter Justin Timberlake.

Solid pandemic-led growth

Bowery’s sales literally went vertical during the pandemic – it experienced more than 750% growth since January 2020 at brick-and-mortar retailers like Albertsons Companies (NYSE: ACI) (Safeway and Acme), Giant Food, Walmart (NYSE: WMT), and Whole Foods Market.

Online was even better, with sales on e-commerce platforms quadrupling.

The company also said it saw “explosive” consumer and retail demand for its reliable supply of pesticide-free Protected Produce.

Bowery operates a technologically sophisticated, proprietary, and highly scalable business model.

“The BoweryOS, the central nervous system of the business, integrates software, hardware, sensors, computer vision systems, AI and robotics to orchestrate and automate the entirety of operations,” the company said in a statement. “Each new farm comes online in record speed, collectively benefiting from the power of the network and its billions of data points that would have taken traditional farmers hundreds of years to gather.”

Use of funds

Bowery will use the latest funds injection to expand its network of “smart” indoor farms across the country, to hire more talent, for R&D, and to further develop its technology.

Bowery is currently transforming an industrial site in Bethlehem, PA into its largest, most technologically advanced, and sustainable farm to date.

Plans are also afoot to add new capacity through additional large-scale commercial farms this year.

“This funding not only fuels our continued expansion but the ongoing development of our proprietary technology, which sits at the core of our business and our ability to rapidly and efficiently scale towards an increasingly important opportunity in front of us,” said Irving Fain, CEO and Founder.

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