Denver, CO — The assets of vertical farming company Kalera have been acquired by Lactuca Holdings, LLC for an undisclosed sum, with financial backing provided by private equity investment manager, Sandton Capital Partners, (“Sandton”).
Kalera is a US-based technology driven vertical farming company with unique growing methods. These combine optimized nutrients and light recipes, precise environmental controls, and clean room standards to produce safe, highly nutritious, pesticide-free, non-GMO vegetables with consistent high quality and an extended shelf life year-round.
With indoor farming facilities in Atlanta, Denver and Houston which have been acquired as part of the deal, Kalera is playing an important role to provide access to fresh produce for a growing population that is faced with climate change, reduction of fertile farmland, and soil erosion. Its consistent product quality year-round means Kalera can be a sole source solution for its customers.
This acquisition backed by Sandton provides the necessary investment to support the firm’s growth, enhancing its relationships with existing customers and supporting its scaling up activities with new retail and wholesale partners. The company will continue to operate business as usual under the premium Kalera brand. The incumbent Kalera team also remains in position to lead the business forward.
Cristian Toma PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Kalera said:
“Kalera is focused on growing fresh, clean, high-quality, nutrient-rich greens in a cost effective and sustainable way. Good science is central to our core offering of providing leafy greens grown indoors in perfect conditions and 100% free of harmful sprays and pesticides. Our methods deliver high nutrients and 90% less water while using a fraction of the land traditional farming requires.
We’re proud to be an innovative, well-capitalized business leveraging our best-in-class technology and growing methods to achieve the highest quality products for our customers. The investment from Sandton is instrumental in supporting our strategy for long-term growth and fulfilling market demand. It will help us to tap further into the expanding $30 billion global lettuce market.
We have plans to increase our production volumes and build upon our already successful high-yielding lettuce and basil programs and expand our micro-green product portfolio. There are also plans underway to license our technology to other vertical growers in a move to help industry participants and bolster the vertical agriculture industry.”
About Kalera
Kalera is a technology driven vertical farming company with unique growing methods combining optimized nutrients and light recipes, precise environmental controls, and clean room standards to produce safe, highly nutritious, pesticide-free, non-GMO vegetables with consistent high quality and longer shelf life year-round. The company’s high-yield, automated, data-driven hydroponic production facilities have been designed for rapid rollout with industry-leading payback times to grow vegetables faster, cleaner, at a lower cost, and with less environmental impact. To learn more visit www.kalera.com
