Recently, the US-based iUNU raised $24 million in a Series B funding round led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood, which will be used to expand products and expand business scale. Founded in 2013, iUNU provides computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for controlled environment agriculture (CEA). To date, the total amount raised has reached $60 million.
The purpose of CEA is to provide protection and maintain optimal growth conditions throughout the growth of crops, with production taking place within closed growth structures, such as greenhouses. Plants often use hydroponic methods to provide proper water and nutrients. CEA optimizes the use of resources such as water, energy, space, capital and labor. In controlled environment agriculture, different techniques can be used to grow food, such as vertical farming, or even in abandoned buildings.
In recent years, the application of artificial intelligence to agriculture has become a trend. According to AgFunder, Novel Farming Systems (which includes CEA, which includes greenhouses, vertical farming, aquaponics, as well as fisheries, microbial farming, insect farming, etc.) is the second highest category for global agtech venture capital in 2020.
However, with events such as the collapse of greenhouse operator AppHarvest's share price and the cancellation of a $1.2 billion reverse merger IPO by vertical farming company AeroFarms, some analysts believe CEA has entered a "trough." iUNU raised funds at this time, which is also a bright spot in the "trough period".
So, how did iUNU come about?
The iUNU team is led by 27-year-old Adam Greenberg, the son of a botanist who grew up in san Francisco horticulture. As a graduate of the University of Washington, Greenberg's blood is filled with entrepreneurship. He worked at Amazon from 2011 to 2013, co-founded a clean water startup in 2013, and won the UW Business Plan Competition that same year.
In addition, its executive team includes CoO Clayton Wood, who was ceo of product development at Synapse, a leading global design and manufacturing company for human-machine interface interaction development solutions for mobile computing, communications and entertainment devices, and Matt King, CTO, who worked on greenhouse AI at previous startups.
An experienced management team is also the secret to iUNU. Since its inception, iUNU has been developing a hardware and software solution for indoor farming, and has first targeted greenhouses. The idea is to digitize the entire crop management process for indoor growers, helping them capture things that the human eye can't capture to ensure higher crop quality and yields.
In addition, the company leverages the LUNA operating system to track plant growth and health in the CEA environment.
According to the official website, the workflow of the LUNA system can be divided into three steps: "Camera & Sensor Data Acquisition - Data Transmission & Storage - Data Processing". Sophisticated data collection tracks the environment and plant status at any time, which can be clearly presented to the user on the mobile phone remotely; it can also detect subtle phenomena that are difficult to detect with the naked eye, thereby reducing risk and preventing problems; intelligent algorithms will form decisions on the data, guide users on how to manage crops, and predict plant growth yields.
This is one of the reasons investors enter iUNU, "LUNA provides a truly comprehensive understanding of the health and growth of each plant, focusing on how the plant actually performs, not just its surroundings." An investor said.
(Source: iUNU official website)
iUNU also acquired CEA analytics platform Artemis and pest management consultancy CropWalk. It has also been supporting the world's larger CEA business, working with leading companies across the ecosystem, including some greenhouse and vertical farming companies such as Pure Green Farms, Hollandia Produce, and others. Over the past few years, the market share has expanded to cover more than 25% of the North American leafy greens greenhouse market, with 74% of the top leafy greens growers using their products.
iUNU has expanded the team by 50% in the last six months and plans to deploy more than 500 bots for data collection this year.
Resources:
[1] https://agfundernews.com/iunu-raises-24m-series-b-to-bring-true-autonomy-to-cea
[2] https://www.prweb.com/releases/2022/03/prweb18555101.htm
[3]https://app.cbinsights.com/profiles/c/b0wxW
[4]https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/ai-in-agriculture-market#:~:text=The%20artificial%20intelligence%20(AI)%20market%20in%20agriculture%20is,are%20fueling%20the%20demand%20for%20robots,%20in%20agriculture.
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