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iFarm:
2019 results
iFarm:
2019 results
iFarm founders and employees talk about the project development in 2019 and the goals for 2020.
Strategy
We dreamed to grow fresh tomatoes and constructed for that purpose translucent
greenhouses in 2017. It turned out it is possible to grow tasty and healthy tomatoes
without sunlight and soil. We did this!
greenhouses in 2017. It turned out it is possible to grow tasty and healthy tomatoes
without sunlight and soil. We did this!
Customers wish to buy a variety of greens, sweet strawberries, cucumbers, radishes and other fresh and tasty crops all year round. iFarm team has been working at the technologies to realise this for 2,5 years.
From a small garage startup we turned into the company that brings automated technologies for vertical farming into the global market. This growing technology is sustainable food production actively developing urban method.
From a small garage startup we turned into the company that brings automated technologies for vertical farming into the global market. This growing technology is sustainable food production actively developing urban method.
42 new employees joined to iFarm in 2019, our team consists of 70 staff members now. We are working in 5 countries and 7 cities.
We focused on vertical farms in 2019 and improved the technology for growing salads and herbs. We launched industrial salad farm by attracting private investors funds. At the same time we carried out various experiments in our laboratories. We several times harvested strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes and edible flowers. We plan to complete industrial technologies for the crops growing in 2020, including baby-vegetables and micro greens.
«We are creating vertical farms that can be used for various crops and you can easily change growing of one crop for another. This makes possible for partners to follow the market tendencies and be high profitable».
Alexander Lyskovsky
iFarm CEO
Development
The company's high growth resulted in the product quality.
In 2019 we pivoted from greenhouses to vertical farms.
The global market shows great interest in this product.
In 2019 we pivoted from greenhouses to vertical farms.
The global market shows great interest in this product.
«Many countries are interested in food safety and are looking at vertical farms as a possible solution. This allows iFarm to participate at large tenders and become a notable player in the global market»
Maxim Chizhov
iFarm Chief Business Development Officer
iFarm was nominated at various world competitions:
- he winner in The Best Social Impact Startup category among startups in the Northern Europe;
- the best AgTech-Startup of Europe, founded in Russia, according to international analytical company Valuer;
- finalist of The Hottest AgTech/FoodTech Startups 2019 nomination of the Europas;
- one of the TOP500 FoodTech Startups of the planet — the most inspiring AgriFoodTech companies of 2019.
10 countries where were presented iFarm technologies in 2019: Finland, Russia, Latvia, Switzerland, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, China, Germany
Well-known business publications as Techcrunch, Techradar, Tech.eu, Forbes Russia, Inc.Russia, RusBase, Venture Business News, Agritecture, Helsinki Business Hub and others have mentioned iFarm in their news.
«The company participation at exhibitions, conferences and competitions resulted in website traffic increasing. We received more than 100 orders for technology purchase per month via website. The company monthly newsletter was read in 50% times. In our plans is holding our own events in 2020, among which will be urban vertical farming conference».
Valeriya Manaenkova
Head of Marketing department
iFarm is planning to gain a foothold in product market in 2020 (read about our business hypotheses here). Our main product will be vertical farms of 35/400/1200/2000 sq.m. area, managed by special software SaaS-solution iFarm Growtune.
Contract production will be increased since 2020; component parts for vertical farms will be produced all over the world based on iFarm engineers specifications.
Partners can purchase component parts either from the closest manufacturer or from the one which offer the best price.
Partners can purchase component parts either from the closest manufacturer or from the one which offer the best price.
20.01.20
iFarm will open showroom in Finnish Espoo
iFarm will open showroom in Finnish Espoo
«Next year our global sales team will be formed, we will hire local managers in those countries where the major part of orders for vertical farm purchase are coming. Each country has market specifics with its rules. You should know them to finalise negotiations».
Maxim Chizhov
Chief Business Development Officer
Design
and implementation
and implementation
In 2020 год there will be active salad technology sales.
iFarm team is ready for simultaneous construction of vertical farms in different parts of the world.
We plan to launch 20000 sq.m. area vertical farms in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Sweden, Israel, Bulgaria , UK and Kazakhstan.
We have organized storehouse for sending equipment purchased at best prices. Supply planning can reduce the facilities cost.
We plan to launch 20000 sq.m. area vertical farms in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Sweden, Israel, Bulgaria , UK and Kazakhstan.
We have organized storehouse for sending equipment purchased at best prices. Supply planning can reduce the facilities cost.
The supply department headed by Elena Andreeva reduced large iFarm salad farm cost for 10% over 5 months.
«We received 929 requests for vertical farm purchase in 2019 from 297 cities of Russia and from 30 countries. 50% of purchase orders are for growing salads technology, 20% - for strawberry, 10% - for vegetables and 5% - for edible flowers. 15% of potential partners wish to invest in industrial facilities construction».
Konstantin Ulianov
executive director
Vertical farm installation guides will be completed by 2020, so you can easily do it like Ikea wardrobe. We plan to deliver the smallest farm (35 sq.m.) to any city around the world over 20 days. We plan to reduce launching period for two months from the moment of signing the agreement to planting for facilities with 1000 sq.m. area! The time necessary for production design will be speed up by detailed technical documentation for main rack types, 3D models base and engineering component parts.
One of iFarm landmark projects is located in Tomsk. In local school "Perspektiva" strawberries vertical farm was launched in fall 2019. It is great to study plants at practical lessons. Pupils create nutrient solutions, pollinate flowers, select bioprotection methods, set up watering and lighting and harvested at our farm. We are glad to cooperate with educational institutions, as city farmer is a career of the future. We are looking for qualified personnel for further development of automated vertical farm technology.
iFarm Cropper – greens growing module for stores, restaurants, schools, universities and private usage was launched in 2019 and it was one of the significant events. The first two growing modules were located in "Azbuka Vkusa" Moscow supermarket of popular retail chain and buyers showed great interest in it, they asked how it works, how the produce is sold, which plants can be grown in it. Salads from showcase module are packed and placed on tiers nearby and anyone can buy it.
We modified Farm Cropper module five times before it went on sale. In 2020, Cropper will also be updated, it will be possible to remotely control the module. Engineers plan to complete the development of Cropper Home and Cropper Micro.
We modified Farm Cropper module five times before it went on sale. In 2020, Cropper will also be updated, it will be possible to remotely control the module. Engineers plan to complete the development of Cropper Home and Cropper Micro.
«After the module was placed at the supermarket and publications in mass media took place we received 43 purchase orders from large companies. Considering the number of requests, the interest of the market and various categories of customers, our team has ambitious plans: we plan to deliver about 80 modules in Russia in a year and up to 20 to foreign partners, including versions for retail, educational institutions, technology parks, restaurants, etc».
Andrey Shvetsov
iFarm Cropper project manager
Agronomists
iFarm agrodepartment employees created new technological maps,
improved salad production and carried out experiments with various technological solutions
during the last year.
improved salad production and carried out experiments with various technological solutions
during the last year.
They should find out optimal climate conditions for each crop for realization of its genetic potential: planting density, lighting, temperature, nutrition, substrates composition.
iFarm plans to start experiments with root and baby vegetables, including eggplant, pepper, cucumber, tomato, cherry and other in 2020. These products will be in great demand in the Middle East, according to the forecast, as they are not grown there now. We have grown tasty "Bon Bon" tomato and radish in the laboratory without sunlight at the end of the year. It was great!
iFarm plans to start experiments with root and baby vegetables, including eggplant, pepper, cucumber, tomato, cherry and other in 2020. These products will be in great demand in the Middle East, according to the forecast, as they are not grown there now. We have grown tasty "Bon Bon" tomato and radish in the laboratory without sunlight at the end of the year. It was great!
«Agrodepartment employees have carried out experiments with a number of crops to find out seeds for optimal germination and yield and a profit of a vertical farm».
Alexey Yushin
chief agronomist
Engineers
iFarm R&D department in 2019 has improved production equipment to reduce vertical farms cost.
For this engineers:
- developed three versions of solution unit;
- created 30 versions of covers and pallets for plants growing;
- checked 10 models of air conditioners.
365 tonnes of nutrient solutions mixed solution units of iFarm two industrial facilities
In 2019 engineers team developed technical specifications for LED-lamps with optimal spectrum for salads and herbs, which are realized under contract manufacturing at plant "Vega-Absolut". We will prepare specifications for manufacturing high efficiency lamps for growing vegetables and strawberries in 2020.
Industrial automation update is a global innovation. Engineers are going to launch a moving conveyor, at which plants are going through all growth stages. All activities from providing nutrient solutions to crops cutting will be done by robot. The approach will increase planting area for 30%, will reduce green's cost and increase farm profitability.
We will start activities on creation of new version of vertical farm for growing strawberries in 2020, it will be equipped with seedlings room, trays for high planting density, optimal LED-lighting. We will have bumblebees at the farm for better pollination of flowers.
We will start activities on creation of new version of vertical farm for growing strawberries in 2020, it will be equipped with seedlings room, trays for high planting density, optimal LED-lighting. We will have bumblebees at the farm for better pollination of flowers.
Software developers
In 2019 we started development of iFarm Growtune SaaS-platform
for remote management of vertical farms.
for remote management of vertical farms.
iFarm Growtune solves very important tasks just now:
- makes it possible to automatically and accurately plan plantings at distributed network of vertical farms and loading production as much as possible;
- gives instructions to growers what to do and monitors the progress on daily agrotechnical and technical activities;
- provide tools for online microclimate and production monitoring at iFarm farms;
- allows to get predicted yield at necessary terms;
- significantly reduce the farm staff workload.
600 000 or more photos of salads every month we collect for our neuron network, which is learning to detect deviations in the development of plants in the early stages.
We started using artificial intelligent technology tools at the end of 2019. For example: the neuron network for determining Romaine diseases and autonomous drones for monitoring of plants growing stages.
iFarm has entered Amazon, Google and NVIDIA startup support programmes and became partners with Azoft, Poteha Labs and EORA. We will continue to develop our solution all together, making it more useful and effective for the customers.
«We plan to expand iFarm Growtune SaaS-platform capabilities in 2020 by adding such tools as: sales monitoring module, storehouse accounting module, ticket and online support module, yield estimation and forecast systems, demand forecast system and quality control system using Blockchain technology. Using computer vision, machine learning and neuron network will give us opportunities for plantings control in a completely automated mode, for continuously improving of agrotechnical maps of crops and for reducing the production cost».
Oleg Kostenko
Chief Product Officer
Finance
By the end of 2019 iFarm has attracted a total of US$3M investments from Gagarin Capital Partner, IMI.VC venture funds and from several private investors.
«We have prepared a joint commercial offer together with leasing company "Siemens Finance". Our partners have an opportunity to buy an equipment in lease subject to certain conditions (we will provide information on it upon request). The programme should increase vertical farms sales».
Olga Pazieva
Chief Financial Officer
In 2020, the company plans to reduce the equipment cost by 30%, consumables by 5-10% as well as to increase yield productivity by carrying out a large number of experiments in our laboratories.
iFarm Finance Team
GrowMe
In 2019 GrowMe team managing iFarm vertical farms network delivered 51 crops to stores and restaurants, among which are: red oaklif, cornflower, spilanthes, mattiola, frize, arugula, kale, pak choi, swiss chard, mint, violet, nasturtium and other.
We learn to cook delicious pesto. We have created 19 different recipes over the year and cooked 1000 jars of pesto, as well as basil extract and cream, chips made of kale grown on vertical farms using iFarm technology. The company's chef is working on tea, oil, juice recipes and other products, for which a part of greens will be processed since 2020. This will preserve useful properties of the products and bring additional margins.
iFarm showroom was opened at design factory Flacon territory. Agronomists plan to grow 23 exotic crops there, including Borage, green perilla "Aojiso", fennel "Danish king", "Boston" salad, swiss chard "Beauty" etc. GrowMe team is preparing pre-order list for the produce, which is popular among Moscow restaurateurs.
Meanwhile at large Novosibirsk farm is debugged production in accordance with HACCP (English: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points).
«At the beginning of 2020 we will certify the farm according to HACCP. It is very important to work out at a large facility all technological stages of the process, it will allow fast launch of the next ones».
Evgeny Maximov
Production director
You can buy iFarm salads, herbs and edible flowers in 32 stores and taste it in the dishes of 40 restaurants. We are collecting feedback from chefs, restaurateurs and end customers. The feedback helps to improve the growing technology.
We plan to launch industrial facilities for greens growing in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg with 7000 sq.m. total area in 2020, to grow microgreens (it is harvested in 14 days, when plants contain maximum concentration of useful substances) as well as to develop new methods of harvesting.
Dmitry Tarasov
Director of Vertical Farm Network GrowMe
Finally we wish to thank our wonderful team. You are the best! We are looking for newcomers who can solve non-standard tasks, who are creative and speed workers. We have job openings for engineers, software developers, agronomists, financial analytics and others. We invite those who are interested in growing and creating a product of the future. See you in the New Year!
30/12/2019
Do you want to build your own farm using iFarm technology and grow fresh vegetables, salads or strawberries all year round?
Write to us!
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