A Scottish indoor farming company aiming to ease world food pressures has raised £22.5 million in backing.
Edinburgh-based Intelligent Growth Solutions said the fundraise is to support "significant global expansion" as the business deploys its vertical farming technology to customers worldwide.
The investment comes after IGS announced at COP28 it would be joining Dubai-based partner ReFarm to build a game-changing 900,000 square foot "gigafarm" in the United Arab Emirates, capable of replacing 1% of food imports to the country.
It said the innovative waste-to-value farm will have the ability to recycle more than 50,000 tonnes of food waste and grow two billion plants each year.
The Series C fundraise was led by existing institutional investors, with COFRA Holding A/G, DC Thomson, and S2G Ventures, supported by Cleveland Avenue LLC, Ospraie Ag Science, and Scottish Enterprise. Private shareholders and IGS staff also contributed to the raise.
Andrew Lloyd, former deputy chief executive, takes over from David Farquhar as chief executive to lead the company as it readies to deliver the "world’s first gigafarm". Sonya Hotson, who has supported IGS as interim chief financial officer since July, also joins the company full time. They both join the IGS board.
Mr Lloyd said: "This year will be transformational for IGS as we prepare to deploy the most advanced indoor farm in the world.
"The scale and scope of the opportunity in the Middle East promises to be market-defining and will begin to make a genuine difference to food security. With the backing of our institutional investors and shareholders, we are equipped to deliver this game-changing project.
"I would like to extend my sincere thanks to David Farquhar, under whose visionary leadership IGS has grown from an innovative concept to a world leader in vertical farm technology.
"Working with our institutional investors, Sonya has been instrumental in securing this funding, and I am delighted to confirm her appointment. Her experience, alongside the talents of the IGS team and our partners, combine to deliver the essential ingredients for scale-up success."
Plan for student housing in place of new homes set to be approved
Proposals for student housing at a site previously earmarked for homes have been recommended for approval.
The Vita Group plans with CDA architects and Turley are for student accommodation for 267 at New Waverley North in Edinburgh in place of a previously approved plan for 90 build to rent homes. The developer said that the new plan was in response to the Scottish Government’s rent freeze policy, a measure partly aimed at easing cost of living pressures.
Scottish travel firm returns to original home in Glasgow
Macs Adventure, the Glasgow-based travel company, is relocating its base to bigger premises in the city’s west end as demand for its holidays continues to grow.
The business, founded by Neil Lapping in 2003, is moving its headquarters to the sprawling Skypark office campus in the fashionable Finnieston area. The move marks the firm’s return to Skypark and underlines the continuing recovery of the travel sector from the pandemic.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here