Last deal

Amount

Debt Financing

Stage

20.10.2020

Date

3

all rounds

$212.9M

Total amount

date founded

Financing round

General

About Company
BrightFarms is an indoor farming company that provides locally grown packaged salads.

Industry

Sector :

Subsector :

founded date

01.01.2011

Number of employees

Company Type

For Profit

Last funding type

Debt Financing

IPO status

Private

Description

The company grows pesticide-free greens in hydroponic greenhouse farms located in the communities it serves, eliminating time, distance, and costs from the food supply chain. BrightFarms partners with supermarkets, cities, capital sources, and vendors to finance, build, and operate local greenhouse farms. The company employs local community farmers and has created a scalable model for sustainable, local farming that uses far less energy, land, and water than long-distance, centralized, and field-grown agriculture. BrightFarms has been recognized as one of the world’s most innovative companies in food by Fast Company.
Contacts

Contact Email

Phone number

Social url

Similar Companies
1000
Frontier Farms

Frontier Farms

Frontier Farms, LLC is an indoor farm project producing culinary herbs and greens without harmful pesticides and herbicides.

Sector

Food Producers

Subsector

Farming

Location

Las Vegas, NV, USA

total rounds

1

total raised

$325K
FarmedHere

FarmedHere

FarmedHere is an indoor commercial vertical farm that creates local produce and jobs in a sustainable farming environment.

Sector

Food Producers

Subsector

Farming

Keywords

Agriculture, Farming, Organic

Location

Bedford Park, IL, USA
Farmers Cut

Farmers Cut

&ever is an ag-tech company that operates indoor vertical farmhouses.

Sector

Food Producers

Subsector

Farming

Location

Munich, Germany
Revolution Farms

Revolution Farms

Revolution Farms is an indoor farm that produces fresh and sustainable lettuce and salad greens using a closed, indoor system.

Sector

Food Producers

Subsector

Farming

Location

Caledonia, MI 49316, USA
M&A Details
1

Acquired by

Cox Enterprises

announced date

20.10.2020

Financials

Funding Rounds
8
3

Number of Funding Rounds

$212.9M

Money Raised

Their latest funding was raised on 20.10.2020. Their latest round Debt Financing

Date 
Funding Round 
Investors 
Money Raised 
Lead 
20.10.2020
20.10.2020
2
$100M
Cox Enterprises

Cox Enterprises

Cox Enterprises is a leading communications, media, and automotive services company.

Sector

Telecommunications Service Providers

Subsector

Telecommunications Services

Location

Atlanta, GA, USA

total rounds

1

total raised

$1.7M

count Of Investments

62

count Of Exists

9
Cox Enterprises

Cox Enterprises

Cox Enterprises is a leading communications, media, and automotive services company.

Sector

Telecommunications Service Providers

Subsector

Telecommunications Services

Location

Atlanta, GA, USA

total rounds

1

total raised

$1.7M

count Of Investments

62

count Of Exists

9
Co-Investors
Investors
7
3

Number of lead investors

7

Number of investors

Investor 
Lead 
Round 
Partners 
No
Series A, Series B
Yes
Series A, Series B, Series C
Emil Capital Partners

Emil Capital Partners

Emil Capital is a private investment company that invests in companies serving the New American Consumer.

Sector

Investment Banking and Brokerage Services

Subsector

Asset Managers and Custodians

Keywords

Financial Services, Venture Capital

Location

Greenwich, CT, USA

count Of Investments

31

count Of Exists

4
Christian Haub

Christian Haub

current job

Tengelmann Warenhandelsgesellschaft KG
Tengelmann Warenhandelsgesellschaft KG
Ted Caplow

Ted Caplow

Ted Caplow is a visionary and pioneer in the field of rooftop sustainable greenhouse development. In 2006 he founded New York Sun Works to promote the use of hydroponic greenhouses for sustainable urban agriculture practices. In 2008 he co- founded BrightFarm Systems, a rooftop greenhouse consultancy firm. He is currently Chairman of its successor company BrightFarms. Formerly a clean energy consultant for Capital-E, LLC, Dr Caplow worked on energy efficiency and carbon offset credits for a range of clients including the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy. A mechanical and environmental engineer by training, Dr. Caplow’s expertise lies chiefly in the area of integrated system design, with particular specialties in renewable energy, water contaminant dynamics and technology assessment. He has published scholarly articles in the Journal of Environmental Engineering, Environmental Science & Technology, Estuaries, Acta Horticulturae, and other journals.

current job

Fish Navy Films

count Of Investments

3

count Of Exists

1
NGEN Partners

NGEN Partners

NGEN Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in innovative and sustainable B2B and B2C companies.

Sector

Investment Banking and Brokerage Services

Subsector

Asset Managers and Custodians

Keywords

B2B, Venture Capital, Financial Services

Location

New York, NY, USA

count Of Investments

61

count Of Exists

18
Peter Grubstein

Peter Grubstein

Peter Grubstein is a founder and Managing Director of NGEN Partners. Peter has over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur, operating executive, venture and financial investor. He founded NGEN in 2001 out of a deep conviction that resource scarcity and energy efficiency would be drivers of technology innovation in the 21st century; and that those innovations could be built into successful portfolio companies addressing environmental challenges that we face today. He has grown the firm from one of the earliest to invest in clean technologies, to a three-fund family with over $500 million under management. Prior to NGEN, Mr. Grubstein made diverse private investments, ranging from leveraged buyouts and leveraged recapitalizations to early venture investments in materials science. Peter has had successful investment exits in Renaissance Lighting, Textronics, U.S. Labs, AnaServe, Carolina Steel, Premiere Video and Kenfil. He gained early career experience as an executive in a global manufacturing firm, working in Germany as well as the United States. Mr. Grubstein is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Renewable Funding, eIQ Energy and Hycrete. He maintains a close relationship with the Materials Science Department at UC Santa Barbara, and was instrumental in bringing Nobel Prize winner Alan J. Heeger and other noted scientists as Venture Partners to NGEN. Grubstein is a graduate of Yale University and the Phillips Exeter Academy. He is an avid outdoorsman, and maintains homes in California and Connecticut.

current job

NGEN Partners
NGEN Partners

organization founded

1

People

Founders
2
Ted Caplow
Ted Caplow

Ted Caplow

Ted Caplow is a visionary and pioneer in the field of rooftop sustainable greenhouse development. In 2006 he founded New York Sun Works to promote the use of hydroponic greenhouses for sustainable urban agriculture practices. In 2008 he co- founded BrightFarm Systems, a rooftop greenhouse consultancy firm. He is currently Chairman of its successor company BrightFarms. Formerly a clean energy consultant for Capital-E, LLC, Dr Caplow worked on energy efficiency and carbon offset credits for a range of clients including the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy. A mechanical and environmental engineer by training, Dr. Caplow’s expertise lies chiefly in the area of integrated system design, with particular specialties in renewable energy, water contaminant dynamics and technology assessment. He has published scholarly articles in the Journal of Environmental Engineering, Environmental Science & Technology, Estuaries, Acta Horticulturae, and other journals.

current job

Fish Navy Films

count Of Investments

3

count Of Exists

1

Ted Caplow

Paul Lightfoot
Paul Lightfoot

Paul Lightfoot

Paul is a serial entrepreneur who has been successfully running high-tech companies since he left his Wall Street law firm job in 1998.Paul is the CEO of BrightFarms (formerly called Better Food Solutions), which designs, finances, builds and operates hydroponic greenhouse farms at grocery retailers, eliminating time, distance and costs from their produce supply chain. Previously, Paul was CEO of BSG, which owns and operates two integrated software businesses: AL Systems, a provider of solutions to improve the productivity of retailer distribution centers; and Mincron Software Systems, a provider of ERP solutions to distributors. Paul was the CEO of BSG or BSG's predecessor, AL Systems, since 2001. Before BSG, Paul was the founder and CEO of Foodline, a venture-backed software company that provided customer and reservations information technology to restaurants. Foodline’s primary investors included American Express, Zagat Survey and Ticketmaster (now IAC/InterActiveCorp). Prior to Foodline, Paul was a transactional attorney at the Wall Street law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, where he specialized in complex asset-backed securitization transactions, which ranged in size from $20m to $3b, for clients such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Bros. Paul has a B.A. from Lehigh and a J.D. from Fordham Law. Paul is Treasurer of the BOD of the Brennan Center for Justice. Paul lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife and three children. Paul has been recognized by Chain Store Age magazine as a "Rising Star in Retail" in their annual 40 Under 40 awards, and is the 2011 winner of the Young President’s Organization CSR Award for Environmental Sustainable Business Practices.

current job

BrightFarms
BrightFarms

organization founded

1

Paul Lightfoot

Employee Profiles
24
Abby Prior

Abby Prior

Chief Commercial Officer

Dominick Mack

Director of operations support

Steve Platt

Steve Platt

CEO

Keith Powers

Director, project construction

Steve Campione

Steve Campione

CFO

Nick Chaney

Nick Chaney

Head Grower OHI

Robert Levin

General counsel

Paul Lightfoot

Paul Lightfoot

Founder & President

Activity

Recent News
5
News Timeline

The graph reveals the ratio (%) of positive news articles in a chosen time range

month