AGRA: ARVUM Plant Factory Pilot - seeking investors and commercial partners

Opportunity for

• Corporate, Angel, VC or Family office investors^ and/or strategic project partners to back a pilot of its Plant Factory technology that can sustainably produce crops at the same price as traditional methods.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge

Crops are responsible for the same GHG emissions as all transportation globally, it is also the single largest cause of deforestation and forest degradation, a leading cause of habitat destruction, species extinction, land degradation, responsible for 30% of global water withdrawals, water contamination and eutrophication.

Farming as a profession is in decline (11% decline between 2006 and 2011 in Australia) and crop yields are expected to decline by 10-20% by the middle of the century while our production needs to increase by 70%. All the while, farmers face uncharacteristically high instances of mental health issues and suicide (tied to a rural job ruled by the weather) with the FAO reporting Agriculture as one of the most hazardous jobs worldwide.

If we do nothing, we will face challenges in feeding the population while doing untold damage to our world.

AGRA have developed a unique automated Plant Factory solution with a novel proprietary growing medium, lighting technology, automation and growing systems with a focus on reduced costs. Able to consistently grow crops year-round independent of climate or weather, using 70% less N2O and CO2, 90% less water, 84-168x yield/m2, no pesticides/herbicides, 40% longer shelf-life, located near urban centres and powered by renewable energy.

AGRA's Plant Factory technology is capable of producing lettuces and herbs at price parity with traditional methods.

In addition, the farms can adjust their lighting demand to align with peak energy production, resulting in cheaper energy for the farm and lower energy production costs by reducing curtailment and storage requirements.

By scaling through a franchise model, the company will leverage its cost advantage, proprietary technology, supply chain and supermarket customers while offering synergies with renewables, software, optimised seeds and low-carbon nutrient fertiliser. This approach enables rapid scaling with significantly less capital, allowing AGRA to iterate and deploy its technology more frequently than any competitor.

Current opportunity

AGRA have opened a pre-seed $500k SAFE round to fund their next phase of development. The company is looking to build a pilot plant using production intended hardware to validate their solution at scale. The completion of which will enable the construction of its first commercial farm and franchising of the technology to scale.

AGRA are also seeking interest from commercial partners and supermarkets interested in leveraging the outputs of this technology, with ongoing discussions already underway with one key potential partner.

• To find out more about this opportunity or to connect go to "Enquire now".*

Opportunity background

AGRA has developed proprietary growing media, automation and lighting that work only when used in conjunction providing a technical moat. Our focused beam lighting is 125% more efficient than a standard horticulture fixture, our aluminium grow media enables low-cost automation eliminating labour cost (40% of competitor OPEX) and simple automation design, enabled by the grow media, eliminates labour at 1/10th the cost of existing solutions.

Our farms offer synergies with renewables, reducing curtailment and storage requirements. We plan to scale through a franchise model, initially targeting the $90B vertical farming market. This enables rapid scaling with significantly less capital, allowing us to iterate and deploy our technology more frequently than any competitor.

At the end of 2023 we completed our prototype facility, achieving price party with the field. The site has 8 months of ongoing deliveries to Fresh Provisions supermarket. We have recently published our first research paper in collaboration with UWA, lowering production costs, with us attached as a partner in their node of the Australian Plant Phenomics Network to guide their controlled environment research with our research partnership ongoing. In early 2024, we completed a consulting contract for a containerised plant production chamber for the Australian Defence Force.

Potential other applications

AGRA ultimately wants to target the sustainable production of staple crops at price parity with the field, with the company targeting price parity production by 2030. These crops are responsible the largest proportion of agriculturesagriculture’s impacts with Plant Factories being one of the only viable solutions due to cost levers and production density. Significant opportunities exist to deploy AGRA’s farms in hostile environments and markets where traditional growing methods are not feasible, given its climate/weather independent year-round production. Other opportunities exist for fruiting crops, pharmaceuticals and production of food in space.

^Professional and sophisticated investors as defined in the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). The content of this opportunity is intended for use by persons having professional experience in matters relating to investments and must not be acted or relied upon by any other person including, without limitation, retail clients.