Pure Harvest Smart Farms secures $180.5m in funding round

Sustainable agriculture company Pure Harvest Smart Farms has secured $180.5 million in its latest funding round, as it looks to expand across Asia.

The round included participation from global investors, including Metric Capital Partners, IMM Investment Corp and Olayan Group, in addition to several existing investors and management.

Pure Harvest, headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, uses controlled environment agriculture technologies such as high-tech greenhouses to produce high-quality, sustainably grown fresh fruits and vegetables.

The company plans to use the investment to support research and development, as well as expand its footprint across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and open new high-tech hybrid smart farms in Asia.

Sky Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of Pure Harvest, said: “We are humbled by this investment from an esteemed group of global investors, backing our mission: to harness the wonders of science, the power of nature and the passions of people to provide tasty, affordable, sustainably grown fresh produce anywhere”.

Kurtz continued: “At Pure Harvest, we have demonstrated we can reliably deploy our high-tech farming solutions across the GCC. Now it is time to enter new markets that share similar challenges to our own – fast-growing populations, seasonal import dependence and an awareness of the crippling effects that short-term crises (e.g. Covid-19, Russia-Ukraine conflict) and climate change are having on our global food system.”

Smart Harvest is also investigating a number of new growth initiatives, including product extensions and water-efficient CEA solutions for fodder production.

The funding round takes the company’s total capital raised to date to $387.1 million.