Tova Feinberg and Dave Kanoff, students at Washington University in St. Louis, Olin Business School, have won funding of $300,000 for their business concept: A scalable network of hydroponic farms providing local, high-quality produce to the business-to-business market.
"We are both passionate about food, where it comes from, the flavors, and (most importantly) how food brings people together to build community. Combining our shared mission to create a more healthy and knowledgeable community around food has proven to be an excellent foundation for our startup venture," they explain.
"We closed our pre-seed round of fundraising, which has enabled us to order our first farm—expecting delivery in the next few weeks (late October 2022)—and have gained initial traction with SOIs from an institutional caterer, a grocery, and several local restaurants."
"Our MBA provided an immense opportunity to workshop ideas and engage with the entrepreneurial community. We each were working on our own projects, trying to enter the food space, before we had the opportunity to team up on a project through WashU and conduct a market-feasibility study for Agtech startup Freight Farms. Under the guidance of our professor, Doug Villhard, our project led us to continue digging beyond the research and eventually led us to our business proposal. Throughout the rest of our MBA, we had an extremely supportive network of staff, faculty, and alumni who helped us develop and launch our business. Post-graduation, we continue to capitalize on the MBA experience by networking and utilizing the plethora of programs and resources available to us through WashU."
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