Vertical farming company GrowUp Farms has received in excess of £100 million to fund the development of a new facility in Kent.
GrowUp was founded by Kate Hofman and Tom Webster in 2013, launching one of the UK’s first Kickstarter campaigns to build The GrowUp Box. In 2019 the company was acquired by Vescor, a spin-out from renewable energy developer Estover Energy.
GrowUp is working with Generate Capital, a US Public Benefit Corporation that builds, owns, operates and finances over 2,000 sustainable infrastructure projects globally, to develop a series of vertical farms that benefit from GrowUp’s unique growing expertise and innovative renewable energy model.
“Our team has worked hard to solve the challenges that kept vertically farmed salads from being cost-competitive and sustainable,” said Marcus Whately, Managing Director of GrowUp. “We partnered with Generate Capital because of their long-term focus on both sustainability and economic efficiency, and together we can now bring this model to scale. As we expand in Kent and at other sites, we look forward to becoming a long-term supply partner across multiple categories – helping supermarkets solve environmental and supply chain problems.”
“We’re thrilled to partner with the expert and innovative team at GrowUp to accelerate sustainable vertical farming infrastructure in the British market,” said Dr Erich Becker, head of Generate Europe. “Generate is passionate about using our expertise in sustainable infrastructure to build facilities that achieve better land use, improve our resource efficiency, add supply chain resilience and mitigate climate change. Low-carbon vertical farming is a much-needed development and we are pleased to be working to accelerate it across Europe and North America.”
Photo source: GrowUp Farms