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David Ashton grew up outside of Sacramento, California, and went to college in San Luis Obispo during the drought of the late 2000s.
He spent years driving the 300 miles between Sacramento and San Luis Obispo, enthralled by fields of perennial lettuce, acres of lush green vegetables in a dark, dry place. The fact that these green crops are grown in the dry season for export to other parts of the country stuck with Ashton and later inspired him to start his own robotic farming. Canopywhich appears to slow down the supply chain.
Portland, Oregon-based Canopii builds greenhouses that can automate the entire growing process from seed to harvest without human intervention. This green space can produce up to 40,000 pounds of produce per year while requiring just one spigot for water and taking up an area the size of a basketball court.
The farms are designed by GK Designs and are currently designed to grow specialty herbs and vegetables such as baby bok choy and gai lan, Chinese broccoli.
Ashton told TechCrunch that he started planting the seeds for Canopii after a Portland-based agtech company he was supposed to work for offered cash back when he was driving up the coast to relocate there. He worked on plans at night while his wife was in medical school.
After three years, he requested a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a model of his vision. After this was done, he asked for a $1 million grant to make the whole picture.
“Now, five years later, we’ve reached a major milestone (for) the farm,” Ashton said. “We have an independent farm that grows everything from seed to harvest without human intervention, and we did it with a small team and a small amount of money, which I think is very different from what other companies have experienced.”
The company has raised about $3.6 million so far, with $2.3 million primarily from grants, and the rest from technology.
Ashton knows what many investors and VCs think about the indoor agriculture sector. The hot segment saw companies like Cultivating the Bowery and More information raising hundreds of millions of dollars before entering the border before seeing a strong success.
They say their business is very different from vertical farms and that the company’s concept of moving slowly, and with no operating costs, has allowed them to avoid many of the same problems.
“Funding needs to be diversified beyond VC,” Ashtons support. “There are five of us now, and we are just iterating on one farm, which has helped us learn a lot. I think that if we get a VC right away, and we try to expand in one or two years, it will not be possible with the infrastructure.”
The company has received interest from schools, restaurants, casinos, and more. Now that the company has become so successful, it looks to build its first commercial farm in downtown Portland. Down the line, Canopii plans to sell these farms in the future — and yes, they’ll raise venture capital when they’re ready.
“We can make as much as a car,” Ashton said. “I think the biggest success of this farm is that the whole thing comes from 100 AMPs and 240 volts. It’s domestic power. You can put this in the back of the house.
