David Ashton, originally from outside Sacramento, California, attended college in San Luis Obispo during the late 2000s drought. Regularly traveling between these locations, he was fascinated by the contrast of green lettuce farms thriving in drought conditions. This intrigue inspired his startup, Canopii, which aims to reduce produce supply chains.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Canopii develops robotic greenhouses that autonomously manage crop production from seeding to harvest without human involvement. These greenhouses can yield up to 40,000 pounds of produce annually, using just one water spigot and occupying space equivalent to a basketball court. They specialize in growing herbs and specialty greens like baby bok choy and gai lan, a Chinese broccoli, with designs manufactured by GK Designs.
Ashton conceived the idea for Canopii after a Portland agtech company he was set to join went bankrupt. He refined his plans while his wife attended medical school. After three years, he secured a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to create a prototype. Following its success, he received a $1 million grant for a full-scale version.
“Now, five years later, we have hit a major milestone [for] the farm,” Ashton said. “We have an autonomous farm that grows everything from seed to harvest without any human intervention, and we did so with a very small team and very little capital, which I think is very different from what the rest of the industry had experienced.”
Canopii has raised about $3.6 million, largely from grants and strategic investors. Ashton acknowledges the challenges faced by the indoor farming sector, as seen with companies like Bowery Farming and Plenty, which raised significant capital before encountering difficulties. He emphasizes that their product differs fundamentally from vertical farms, and their deliberate approach without venture capital has helped them bypass common industry obstacles.
“The capital stack has to be diversified beyond VC,” Ashton added. “We’re five now, and we’re still just iterating on one farm, which has allowed us to learn so much. I think if we got VC right away, and we try to scale after year one or two, that’s not possible with food infrastructure.”
Canopii has attracted interest from schools, restaurants, and casinos. With automation milestones achieved, the company plans to establish its first commercial farm in downtown Portland and eventually franchise their farms, considering venture capital when ready.
“We can mass produce it like a car,” Ashton said. “I think a big achievement on this farm is that the whole thing runs off of 100 AMPs and 240 volts. That’s house power. You can literally put this in a backyard. And that speaks to the level of resource management that we’ve achieved in this farm.”