The news comes at a critical time for the $200 billion global Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) market, which is expanding rapidly due to rising demand for reliable food supplies and decreasing setup costs. Yet the sector faces mounting pressures: energy and labour costs have surged, emissions regulations are tightening and there's a shortage of skilled growers to operate indoor farms, greenhouses and seed breeding businesses. Existing tools lack the sophistication to process vast amounts of data and deliver timely insights, leaving many operations struggling to adapt efficiently. This underscores a pressing need for AI-powered solutions capable of analysing large swathes of data in real time – enabling smarter, automated decisions and unlocking the full potential of precision agriculture.
Agriculture Investments Limited, one of the UK's most progressive fruit producers, adopted Gardin's technology after seeing its potential to deliver scalable, confident decision-making for more resilient, high-quality crops. "We have been long believers that to truly optimise food production we need to be able to change the greenhouse climate to adapt to the crop's needs but there was no solution on the market that could solve this with high confidence and scalably…. Until we met Gardin. Gardin's unique sensor + AI is able to detect changes in crop photosynthesis and provide clear, actionable insights based on that. As a result, within a couple of months of trialling Gardin's product we decided to sign a multi-year contract," said David Moore, Director of Agriculture at Agriculture Investments.
Fromboer reports a 5% yield increase per square meter thanks to more uniform, high-quality production and improved cost control. "The sensor contributes to homogeneous production with high quality and cost control. Overall, I estimate yield is at least 5% higher per square meter," said Leonard Boer, Owner & Head Grower at Fromboer.
Ridder highlights Gardin's ability to drive profitability boosts of up to 30%, yield gains of 15%, and early detection of crop stress weeks in advance – marking a shift from traditional climate control to data-driven "crop control." "For many years now we have been able to effectively automate climate control around the crop, the next phase is to incorporate real time feedback from the crop and move from 'climate control' towards 'crop control'. Gardin has developed the key technology to enable this," said Sander Baraké, CTO at Ridder. "Results include profitability boosts of up to 30% by optimizing winter LED efficiency and maximising summer light. Yield increases of up to 15% and early detection of biotic and abiotic stresses by up to 4 weeks before crop walking," he continued.
With this new round of funding, Gardin will enhance its platform and grow their commercial team to expand its customer base across continents. Available jobs are listed here.
Led by serial entrepreneur Sumanta Talukdar, who previously co-founded and exited WaveOptics for over $500 million, brings decades of experience across optics, photonics, sensors and computer science,
"Navus Ventures are in my opinion the best Ag focussed investor in Europe with a deep knowledge and network in this ecosystem. The whole Gardin team is very pleased to partner with Navus," said Sumanta Talukdar, Founder & CEO of Gardin.
"Gardin has developed a unique affordable technology that gives growers an actual pulse on their plants and therefore business. A great addition to our portfolio and fit with our strategy and background, we are looking forward to helping Sumanta and the Gardin team through the next phase of commercial scaling," said Jaap Zijlstra, director at Navus.
About Gardin
About Navus Ventures
About LDV Capital
About Oxford Innovation Finance
About MMC Ventures
About Seedcamp
About Alchimia Investments
Media Contact
Damiana Price
+44 7894786685
d.price@gardin.co.uk
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