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    NEWS | WIMBLEDON | SOLVING SUSTAINABLE

    80 Acres Farms' Strawberry Crop at Wimbledon

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    Contributor: Marie Freier

    31 Aug 2023

    authorImage

    Contributor: Marie Freier

    31 Aug 2023

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    Agtech company, 80 Acres Farms, demonstrated how vertical farming can help tackle food insecurity by growing strawberries at the The Championships, Wimbledon 2023.

    There are over eight billion people and rising living on planet Earth. Factor in farm animals as well and that’s a vast number of mouths to feed. The combination of population growth, climate change, urbanisation encroaching on farmland and geopolitical tensions means that food insecurity is now a global problem.

    Vertical farming is playing an instrumental role in its solution, and by growing upwards instead of outwards, international agtech business, 80 Acres Farms, continues to sustainably tackle the ongoing challenges of food insecurity.

    The capability of its indoor vertical farming model was recently demonstrated to fans this summer at Wimbledon. 80 Acres Farms' vertical growing exhibit at the world-renowned tennis tournament demonstrated how non-genetically modified (non-GMO) strawberries can be grown sustainably year-round, without pesticides or herbicides using minimal water and renewable energy.

    Agtech remains a key area of focus for Barclays’ Sustainable & Impact Banking team, and it has been supporting 80 Acres Farms for several years, through the Unreasonable Impact accelerator programme and its Series B financing. 

    Read the case study

    Series B Funding Helps 80 Acres Farms Climb to New Heights

    80 Acres Farms is expanding its vertical farming operations with a $200 million capital raise for which Barclays Corporate & Investment Bank served as sole placement agent.

    80 Acres Farms’ innovative proprietary growing system creates a controlled environment that enables it to grow up to 300 times* as much non-GMO food per square foot as conventional outdoor farms. And it does this without pesticides and herbicides, using only green energy and 95% less water than traditional farming.

    The 80 Acres Farms’ model can be replicated almost anywhere in the world, and it can produce a lot more than strawberries. Its first 70,000 square foot farm in Ohio grows 10 million servings of produce per year across twenty microclimates. Its newest farms cover 200,000 square feet and can produce millions more portions annually.

    The Unreasonable Impact accelerator is focused on scaling up growth-stage entrepreneurs operating at the nexus of advanced technology, global impact, and profit whose business solutions are dedicated to solving pressing global issues.

    * Source: 80 Acres Farms

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    About the expert

    Marie Freier

    Global Co-Head of Barclays Sustainable & Impact Banking

    Marie Freier is Barclays Global Co-Head of Sustainable & Impact Investment Banking. Marie and her team advise and raise capital for emerging growth companies that are addressing a wide range of sustainability issues, as well as for existing clients navigating their own transition. She is deeply engaged in market-wide ESG discussions, serving on the Barclays Sustainable Finance and Climate Council as well external groups, such as the European Risk Management Council’s Sustainability Think Tank. Marie was previously Global Head of Cross-Asset ESG Research at Barclays, leading the integration of ESG considerations into Barclays research product. In this role she built a global team of ESG subject matter experts to support credit and equity analysts in assessing how ESG Attributes affect financial risks and valuations across sectors and companies, ultimately driving security pricing, as well as being in close dialogue with institutional investors globally. Marie joined Barclays from Sanford C. Bernstein, where she served as Head of European Product Management and, most recently, as both co-Head of European Sales and Global Head of ESG, spending more than 13 years at the firm. She previously worked in the reinsurance industry for Aon and Willis Re, now part of Willis Tower Watson. Marie holds an M.A. in Mental Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh.

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