Click & Grow, producer of smart indoor gardens, closed its latest financing round led by Estonian-based United Angels VC alongside two strategic investors: Ingka Group, the home furnishing retailer operating 367 IKEA stores, and SEB Alliance, the corporate venture arm of French Groupe SEB. This is the most significant round Click & Grow has raised so far. The round aimed to expand and accelerate Click & Grow’s worldwide presence and further popularize hyper-local gardening. Y Combinator and Yunqi VC also participated in the round.
Click & Grow’s technology enables plants to be grown hyper-locally with zero effort, giving everyone a chance to grow fresh, GMO and pesticide-free greens at home or in any other space, using vegan based Smart Soil. Founded in 2009, Click and Grow has achieved a global presence and is now selling its third-generation smart gardens. The company’s largest market is in the US, followed by the EU and Singapore.
“Being one of the pioneers of hyperlocal gardening, we have been the drivers behind smart indoor gardens earning their rightful place among kitchen tools. Now we are working towards our next milestone to see how hyper-local farming can have a lasting impact on the sustainability of our food chain and reduce food waste. We couldn’t think of having better partners onboard to help us along the way than Ingka Group, with their commitment to a people and planet-positive future, and Groupe SEB, the world’s leader in small household equipment,” said Mattias Lepp, Founder, and CEO of Click & Grow.
“This investment is part of Ingka Group’s broader commitment to support innovative companies contributing to more sustainable and healthy food, and we believe Click & Grow’s novel approach has great potential. We see this as another step forward in our journey to serve IKEA customers and our co-worker's healthier and more nutritious food, and it opens up new opportunities for IKEA Retail markets to become more self-sufficient by growing fresh local produce,” explained Krister Mattsson, Head of Investments, Ingka Group.
To accelerate the expansion of Click and Grow's global foothold and to strengthen the position in Europe, this July Groupe SEB (active in 150 countries with brands such as Krups, Rowenta and Tefal) became a co-branding and distributor partner of Click & Grow in the French and DACH markets.
“We see indoor gardening becoming a promising trend for home/office. We are convinced by the leading edge of Click and Grow products and technology in this domain. We strongly believe in our capacity to help the company in its future development on the base of co-branding with EMSA and leveraging our worldwide presence” said François-Xavier Meyer, Vice President SEB Alliance, Groupe SEB.
For more information:
clickandgrow.com
www.ikea.com
www.seballiance.com
www.unitedangels.vc