Personal Vertical Farms – This is the big promise that drives Babylon Micro-Farms. The Richard, Virginia-based start-up makes the Galleri, a large $15,000 wall-mounted installation designed to grow more than 50 different plants for on-site harvesting. This system is now clearly outrageously priced for most people. Therefore, the company now focuses on food service for industries such as healthcare, education and the corporate world. Anyone who craves hyperlocal products. Babylon announced his $8 million Series A led by Venture South. The round, which also includes Virginia Venture Partners, Hull Street Capital and New Theory Ventures, follows a $3 million seed announced almost exactly two years ago. This was also done when the startup announced its $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.
The Galleri system is manufactured locally and has been designed for distributed fleet management using Babylon’s proprietary BabylonIQ platform for Vertical farms. This allows for real-time analysis of plant health and predictive maintenance on the fleet of vertical farms. By managing growing conditions, scheduling planting/harvesting, and reordering supplies automatically, the platform ensures healthy crops and happy customers at scale. This is a significant innovation that has made modular growing systems successful.
Each Galleri system can produce up to 24 pounds of leafy greens per month, making it a highly efficient and self-contained system. However, the real strength of the system is its modularity, allowing multiple systems to be linked together in a single location. While the $15,000 price tag may be prohibitive for some individuals, the strong return on investment potential for producing microgreens makes it a promising solution for food services.
The $8 million funding round, which also features Virginia Venture Partners, Hull Street Capital, and New Theory Ventures, comes two years after the startup’s $3 million seed round. Babylon’s CEO Alexander Olesen says that the funding will be used to accelerate production and marketing efforts for the Galleri system, as the company looks to expand its install base.
Overall, Babylon Micro-Farms is a promising startup that is addressing the need for hyper-local produce in food services. With the Galleri system’s innovative distributed fleet management and modularity, Babylon is poised to revolutionize the way vertical farms are managed and utilized. As the company continues to expand, we can expect to see more efficient and cost-effective solutions for producing fresh, healthy produce.
