French startup firm Agricool has raised $4.3 million in investments from a handful of venture capitalists. Agricool plans to turn a shipping container into a habitable environment conducive for growing fruits and vegetables.
Among the firms and investors that support Agricool's venture are Daphni, Henri Seydoux, and Captain Train co-founder Jean-Daniel Guyot.
Increasingly, people are starting to move into large cities, and this creates a difficulty in providing food as rural areas are slowly being developed into highly urbanized communities to support this massive migration. This has turned into an environmental and logistical problem.
Agricool is currently working with strawberries. However, the startup said that once the project took off, it will eventually add other fruits and vegetables as well. A majority of France's strawberries are imported from Turkey, Spain, Germany, or Italy. With Agricool is trying to produce strawberries right from its home in Paris.
Agricool believes that if farmers can control the light, water, substrate and other factors essential to the plant's growth, they can grow strawberries almost anywhere, including inside a shipping container, according to Tech Crunch.
Once these factors are properly equated, the next step is to optimize resources to produce more products from a single shipping container. As stated on its official website, Agricool said that the firm is not going to use pesticide to increase yield, a stance that might drive up the price of its products.
Agricool is currently renting a warehouse which holds its shipping containers. With its latest round of investments, Agricool plans to turn 75 containers into a viable farmland by 2017. All of these containers will be installed in various locations in Paris. Agricool aims to produce 91 tons of strawberries out of this first venture.
Aside from strawberries, Agricool is also open to testing other products soon. Right now, the firm is focusing its resources and attention towards a single product only.