Shownotes
Episode Summary
Keenan Pinto is the founder and CEO of Nordetect, a real-time nutrient analysis product with cloud-connected hardware and accessible software that allows farmers to test their own soil samples and see results in real time. Today, Harry and Keenan talk about his vision for improving the equity, quality and footprint of food through technology, his entrepreneurial journey and why he chose to relocate to Denmark. They also touch on challenges Keenan faced as a first-time CEO, what indoor agriculture activity he is seeing in New York State, and what the future holds for Nordetect.
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Key Takeaways
07:13 – Harry welcomes to the show, Keenan Pinto, who talks about his experience at the Indoor AgTech Summit in NYC, his decision to move to Copenhagen and the origin of his entrepreneurial journey
12:17 – Any early interest in plant genetics and encountering an unknown frontier
16:59 – Keenan’s AgTech origin story
20:34 – Indoor AgTech and IKEA?!?
25:31 – The inspiration to launch Nordetect
28:35 – Improving the Equity, Quality, & Footprint of Food through Technology
31:21 – Challenges as a first-time CEO
35:30 – Nordetect’s services and offerings, reviews from early clients and the importance of educating farmers
42:11 – A unique consulting opportunity
45:02 – What activity Keenan is seeing in New York
48:55 – Keenan speculates on the future of Nordetect
52:52 – A tough question Keenan has had to ask himself recently
56:55 – A specific ask Keenan has for the audience
58:22 – Harry thanks Keenan for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can connect with him and learn more about Nordetect
Tweetable Quotes
“I think that’s one of the interesting things about this is that because it’s a young, up-and- coming, and somewhat nascent industry, you start to see activity everywhere. And if you’re in a space where you’re looking at acquiring customers, then they’re [vertical farming conferences] popping up everywhere.” (08:23) (Keenan)
“I think I’ve always been into biology through my education. In school, I was a little bit of a science nerd so science and math was a strong point. And, I think after choosing to do an engineering degree, biology stood out. So, I kinda wanted to do something that had not just this pure engineering, but had sort of the living world attached to it. I chose bio-tech because it has both elements and the plant genetics side of things was really during the choice of deciding to study a Masters.” (12:28) (Keenan)
“What you see is, with Diagnostics, you see it when it’s on the market but a lot of these MedTech innovations, what we didn’t realize, took decades to come to market. So, the first couple of years was heavy technology development. And it was all about outdoors, and soil, and farming, and enabling farmers to use less fertilizer.” (28:13) (Keenan)
“For us, as founders, the vision is really to be able to provide either a product or a service that can help de-risk cultivation for those farmers.” (30:06) (Keenan)
“One of the VCs that I spoke with said, ‘We don’t invest in vertical farms, but we want to see the Tech providers that can take technology and help upgrade or upscale the smaller farms and bring them up to the level of these larger farms with a lot of investment. Companies that can do that will be the big ones of the next day.’” (43:16) (Keenan)
“I think that coming out of the greenhouse and really moving outdoors is a future that I personally would like to see for the company and one that is not too far away.” (51:35) (Keenan)
“That’s a big dilemma. That’s a big question. How do we want to grow the company? Do we want to consider this differential mindset of maybe reaching profitability faster and maybe growing a bit slower, or do you want to take in a lot of cash and then grow very aggressively?” (54:55) (Keenan)
Resources Mentioned
Keenan’s Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/keenan510/?originalSubdomain=dk
Nordetect – https://nordetect.com/
Nordetect LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/nordetect/
Nordetect Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/nordetect
Nordetect Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/nordetect/
Sponsor Info
Cultivatd’s Website – https://cultivatd.com/
Cultivatd’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/cultivatdco/
Cultivatd’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/cultivatd
Cultivatd’s Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/cultivatd/
Netled - https://netled.fi/
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Mentioned in this episode:
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
Transcripts
$680 million poured into precision ag last year.
Speaker:Autonomous weeding robots dominated, and John Deere made 2 acquisitions in 3
Speaker:months. A food company, not an equipment maker, bought a
Speaker:robotics startup to protect its own supply chain. The deals are
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Speaker:you need the full picture before your competitors get it. The 2025
Speaker:Precision Agriculture Intelligence Report From iGrow News is now
Speaker:available. Get your copy today at
Speaker:igrownews.com/precision. If you are starting a vertical
Speaker:farm and don't know where to begin or which technology would suit your needs,
Speaker:then reach out to the experts at Cultivated. As indoor farm brokers, they
Speaker:help connect you to the right technology and ensure your project is successful.
Speaker:Best of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners.
Speaker:Visit cultivated.com to learn more. And that's spelled
Speaker:C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D dot com,
Speaker:or click the link in the show notes. I think I've always been
Speaker:very into biology through my education. I think like in school I
Speaker:was a little bit of a science nerd, so science and math was
Speaker:always something somewhat of a strong point. And I
Speaker:think after sort of choosing to do an engineering degree, or at
Speaker:least, you know, deciding to do it pre-actually getting in, biology
Speaker:stood out. So I kind of wanted to do something that maybe had this,
Speaker:not just pure engineering, but had a bit of a sort of like the
Speaker:living world attached to it. I chose biotech because, you know,
Speaker:it kind of has both elements. And the plant genetic
Speaker:side of things was really during the choice of deciding to study a
Speaker:master's.
Speaker:Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast. Weekly conversations with
Speaker:fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech visionaries.
Speaker:Join us every week as we dive deep into the world of vertical
Speaker:farming with your host, Harry Duran.
Speaker:Vertical Farming Podcast, Season 6. Welcome back. If this is your first time
Speaker:listening, I always roll out the green carpet to new listeners. This is
Speaker:the show where we interview fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical
Speaker:farming companies from around the world. I'm your host, Harry Duran. In
Speaker:case you missed last week's episode, I had a really great conversation with
Speaker:Eric Izel, entrepreneur, environmentalist, and CEO of
Speaker:GrowFlux, a company that offers automation and cloud technologies aimed at
Speaker:resource efficiency and yield expansion for indoor farms and greenhouses. We
Speaker:had a great conversation about his Philly roots, his rich experience in design and
Speaker:architecture, wireless engineering, and renewable energy, and went
Speaker:deep on circadian lighting, providing controls for lighting, and his passion
Speaker:for fostering resource efficiency, and environmental
Speaker:stewardship in agriculture. Please check that out if you haven't. It's a deep dive,
Speaker:especially for those that are interested in all the innovations happening in
Speaker:the lighting space. This week, another conversation born out
Speaker:of my visit to Indoor AgTech NYC. It's
Speaker:Keenan Pinto. He's the founder and CEO of Nordetect. It's a real-time
Speaker:nutrient analysis product with cloud-connected hardware and accessible
Speaker:software that allows farmers to test their own soil samples and see results
Speaker:in real time. We talk about his applications for
Speaker:this software in the vertical farming industry, his vision for
Speaker:improving the equity, quality, and footprint of food through
Speaker:technology, his entrepreneurial journey, and why he chose to
Speaker:relocate to Denmark. We touched on the challenges he faced as a first-time
Speaker:CEO and the opportunities he's seeing in indoor ag and what
Speaker:the future holds for Nordetect. Don't forget, if you enjoyed this episode or past episodes,
Speaker:I'd love it if you leave a rating and a review at ratethispodcast.com/vfp. I am
Speaker:on the lookout for some new ones.
Speaker:So if you're the type of person that likes to hear your name read out,
Speaker:I will be sure to give you a shout out, or I can leave it
Speaker:anonymous if you'd like.
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp. Okay,
Speaker:before we jump into this uninterrupted conversation with Keenan Pinto,
Speaker:here are a few words from the folks that support this show. This episode is
Speaker:brought to you by NetLed. From consultation and technology to services and
Speaker:maintenance, NetLed has the complete package. Whether it's your first vertical farm
Speaker:or you need help scaling an existing operation, NetLed can help. They offer
Speaker:both service and technology business solutions for vegetable and herb producers, from
Speaker:pilot phase projects to industrial-scale mass production. And with Vera,
Speaker:you have the only true end-to-end turnkey vertical farming solution on the market.
Speaker:Learn more at netled.fi, or you can visit their
Speaker:North American showcase facility in Calgary, Canada. If you'll be attending the
Speaker:Global Produce and Floral Show in Orlando, Florida this October
Speaker:27th through 29th, then please visit the NetLed booth
Speaker:at the FutureTech Pavilion. The team would love to meet you. So, Keenan
Speaker:Pinto, founder and CEO of Nord Detect, thank you so much for joining me on
Speaker:the Vertical Farming Podcast. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for having me, Harry.
Speaker:So I appreciate you being flexible. For the benefit of listener, you want to let
Speaker:folks know where you're calling in from and what time of day it is?
Speaker:Yeah, sure. I'm calling in from Copenhagen, Denmark. Okay, 7
Speaker:PM right now. I had a nice day at work and looking forward
Speaker:to this chat. Yeah, I think the interesting thing with this industry,
Speaker:it is truly a global industry. And I,
Speaker:you know, when you look at what's happening with, uh, the folks at iGrow do
Speaker:a great job with their daily newsletter and you see the activity happening.
Speaker:I mean, today's news was about what's happening in China, Dubai,
Speaker:India, as I'm sure, you know, we can speak a little bit about that, what's
Speaker:happening in Europe. Is it the same for you? Do you feel like this is
Speaker:almost like a 24/7 activity when it comes to tracking what's happening in
Speaker:the industry? Oh, for sure. I think that we— how we
Speaker:got in touch was at the Indoor AgTech Summit in New York City. And
Speaker:so we flew down for that. And most of our customers are either east or
Speaker:west of Copenhagen. So I think it's— you got to be up early
Speaker:and up late as well. So around the clock almost. But I think that that's
Speaker:one of the interesting things about this is that because it's a young
Speaker:up-and-coming and in almost some ways nascent industry, you start to see
Speaker:activity everywhere. And if you're— Yeah. In a space where you're
Speaker:looking at acquiring customers, then they're popping up
Speaker:everywhere. So yeah, you have to be where the conversations are happening.
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah. So was that your first
Speaker:indoor ag conference? Had you been to a couple by then? I think
Speaker:in person, yes. It's been a while, right? So I think, yeah, in
Speaker:person, yes. We did a couple of online events some time ago over the
Speaker:past, let's say, I did the same event last year online and then
Speaker:one in the middle. Okay. But for in-person, yes, it's been the
Speaker:first one of late. What was the experience like for you? I know coming
Speaker:from the podcasting world and a couple of conferences I attended when I was in
Speaker:my corporate job, there's a different vibe that
Speaker:happens when you're in person with folks. And what I like, I've mentioned this a
Speaker:couple of times, what I liked about Indoor AgTech NYC was that it was single
Speaker:track. So everyone got to attend all the sessions and they timed it in a
Speaker:way where it was really well structured. So you had
Speaker:allotted time to meet the event, see the vendors, and then also to
Speaker:have some one-offs during lunch. I think they did a really good job. What was
Speaker:your experience like? I think I definitely enjoyed that kind of balance
Speaker:as well. So we had a stand and that
Speaker:balance between, you know, having the guests go for
Speaker:sort of the lectures, the conference sessions, and then being able to balance that out
Speaker:also with the meetings and the networking. I think that was very interesting
Speaker:because I think a couple of times what happened with me is that either the
Speaker:meeting I booked was impromptu canceled or the person was
Speaker:late. We couldn't find each other and you ended up meeting with someone else who
Speaker:was also waiting for someone. And just because everyone was in the
Speaker:same industry, those connections ended up being ones that were actually
Speaker:fruitful. So, you know, the kind of water cooler
Speaker:almost type of thing worked out for us at least. So
Speaker:would you say the conference was a success for you? I would say so. I'd
Speaker:say that it was interesting to the point that we're still getting
Speaker:follow-ups, which is awesome. I think it's been
Speaker:almost maybe 2 months now or 3 months now, and we're
Speaker:still having conversations with various clients, potential customers
Speaker:that are reaching out, and also potential vendors
Speaker:that we have ongoing conversations with. So definitely a
Speaker:success. So home is currently Copenhagen.
Speaker:Has it— how long has that been home for you and where did you grow
Speaker:up? So I was born and raised in Bombay. Okay. In
Speaker:India. And I say Bombay because when I was born and raised there, it was
Speaker:called Bombay and then they changed it to Mumbai. And so that's sort of
Speaker:where, that's sort of the original home. I moved to Copenhagen in
Speaker:2015. So it's been 7-odd years now.
Speaker:Yeah. And what prompted the move? Interestingly, my
Speaker:family moved here sometime around 2010
Speaker:and I have a background in biotech and my dad was on
Speaker:about the fact that Denmark is a nation that has some of
Speaker:the biggest biotech companies, you know, the insulin producers, the enzyme
Speaker:producers, they're like number one in their respective spaces.
Speaker:And I had completed my master's in the UK. I'm a plant
Speaker:genetic engineer by education. So that's sort of the red thread with
Speaker:the indoor ag industry in many ways.
Speaker:And I was kind of sold on the idea of
Speaker:moving to Denmark because of the sort of
Speaker:standard of living for one, but also the work-life balance. It was very attractive.
Speaker:I had family here, but I think what I didn't expect was
Speaker:that eventually it would lead to an entrepreneurial journey because I
Speaker:think in many ways it's sort of the inverse because
Speaker:typically with startups, the work-life balance sometimes goes out the window, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, nonexistent. Yeah.
Speaker:I'm curious, you mentioned your father
Speaker:and then your interest in plant genetics. How did that develop for
Speaker:you? early on for you to decide that's something you wanted
Speaker:to study more in depth? I think I've always been
Speaker:very into biology through my education. I think like in school
Speaker:I was a little bit of a science nerd. So science and math was
Speaker:always something somewhat of a strong point. And I think
Speaker:after sort of choosing to do an engineering degree, or at least,
Speaker:you know, deciding to do it pre actually getting in, biology stood out.
Speaker:So I kind of wanted to do something that maybe had this not
Speaker:just pure engineering but had a bit of a sort of like the living
Speaker:world attached to it. I chose biotech because, you know, it kind
Speaker:of has both elements. And the plant genetic side of
Speaker:things was really during the choice of deciding to study a
Speaker:master's. I think towards the end of my bachelor's, I had
Speaker:this sort of interest in plants. At the time, and this was
Speaker:about 2012, there was a lot of talk about how we
Speaker:can produce novel compounds in bacteria and we
Speaker:can do that in yeast, but there was— Plant cell culture
Speaker:and plant cell factories was kind of touted as the
Speaker:future. And I thought that this is great, right? Because if we could produce
Speaker:novel compounds in plants, then you don't have to
Speaker:build, you could just grow them. You could grow these either
Speaker:medicinal compounds or others. And that's kind of what got me
Speaker:into it. And I think that, I think the genetic side, there was
Speaker:always maybe this affinity. I think that at one point a
Speaker:professor at university said that You know, you have—
Speaker:biology is an extremely vast area, but when
Speaker:you go into genetics and molecular biology, that's where you really start
Speaker:to kind of— I'm not going to say play with life, I can't remember the
Speaker:phrase exactly, but you're sort of working with DNA and
Speaker:RNA, which is kind of the building blocks of life. So I think that
Speaker:those kinds of things combined with plant science is what really got me into it.
Speaker:It's funny because I see some parallels as more and more people are
Speaker:delving, you know, people who have a passion, scientists who have a passion for
Speaker:this topic, are, are discovering more and more
Speaker:about our DNA and about the DNA of all living things. And I
Speaker:think it's only a matter of time before what we consider, you know, I'm using
Speaker:air quotes for the listeners, junk DNA— it's just stuff that we, you know, it's
Speaker:just the DNA that we don't understand or haven't been able to learn more about
Speaker:as far as humans concerned. And I'm sure in, in the plant world it's the
Speaker:same. It's almost like undiscovered frontier. It's almost
Speaker:similar to this, the discovery of space in the other direction, but just looking inward.
Speaker:I imagine there's no shortage of pathways to go down to just learn
Speaker:more about things that we have— we've only begun to tap into. Oh, for sure.
Speaker:I think that that's— the industry did have a sort of bad
Speaker:rep just because GMO crops for food was sort of the
Speaker:natural application, if you will, of the technology.
Speaker:But I think since then we've started to see new ways in which
Speaker:scientists have applied genetic engineering in
Speaker:plants for non-food causes.
Speaker:And that's where you really start. I think it was, I heard of a research
Speaker:group in Israel that was producing insulin for humans
Speaker:from the tobacco plant. Wow. Yeah. So I think
Speaker:those are kinds of examples where, you know, as long as you're not eating it,
Speaker:maybe you don't, and it's grown in a contained environment and then
Speaker:disposed of safely, there's no cross-contamination with nature.
Speaker:Suddenly it doesn't, you know, feel as bad. But if you're eating
Speaker:GMO corn, then there's a little bit of a
Speaker:not-so-nice feeling towards it. It's funny because you think about
Speaker:substances like tobacco, which for the longest time were
Speaker:processed in a way that wasn't, you know, as close to where it was
Speaker:naturally sourced from. And if you think about Native Americans using tobacco as a
Speaker:sacrament and as something that was part of their environment on a regular
Speaker:basis, You start to kind of put pieces together like, well, maybe there was
Speaker:something they knew intuitively that was helpful for them, and now
Speaker:science is able to put the pieces together, which I always think is fascinating.
Speaker:It's true, right? I mean, that there is so much knowledge that sometimes I feel
Speaker:just get lost with the ages and
Speaker:plants that we have historically used. So being from
Speaker:India, there's a strong herbal plant science
Speaker:industry called Ayurveda, and there's so many
Speaker:things that you know, you probably heard this from your grandmother or your
Speaker:great-grandmother, but, you know, all that knowledge is lost and we're sort of
Speaker:rediscovering it in the context of modern science. So, I
Speaker:definitely think that there's a lot left to uncover there. Yeah, definitely exciting
Speaker:times. So, as you left university and started
Speaker:entering the 9-to-5 world and
Speaker:you had a couple of different jobs, but leading up to, you know, as
Speaker:we get to more of the indoor agtech, which was the first opportunity for
Speaker:you to you know, play more in this space? I know that you worked at
Speaker:the Bombay Hemp Company, and was that like the first chance
Speaker:that you got to kind of put into practice some of what you'd been learning?
Speaker:Yeah, definitely. I think that that was straight out of, you know, university.
Speaker:It was a young company on a very ambitious mission,
Speaker:and they were brilliant guys, but they all
Speaker:had a business background. And at the time, they were just getting off the
Speaker:ground, and they were looking to pull together
Speaker:people who had maybe the technical chops to get to what they needed.
Speaker:And it was fairly controversial at the time, I'd say
Speaker:back then in India, right? Because it's still a scheduled or
Speaker:regulated crop. They have made significant progress now on the
Speaker:hemp front where it's legalized in certain states, but it was
Speaker:definitely, I remember my family saying, are you sure you wanna work with this
Speaker:company? And is it really hemp they're talking about?
Speaker:Or, so yeah, that's kind of what got me to put some of the skills
Speaker:to practice. I remember they were looking at building germplasm or a
Speaker:genetics library, which would enable them to build the
Speaker:first Indian strain of hemp,
Speaker:low THC. And in order to do that, they needed
Speaker:seeds, right? So I think one of the interesting activities that I got
Speaker:to do was to design, if you were to go strain
Speaker:hunting, what would you be looking for? Like if you
Speaker:had to evaluate a crop and you didn't have a technical background, what are some
Speaker:of the things that you could do, like look at the size of the leaves,
Speaker:the kinds, shapes of the leaves, things like that. So it's very interesting, and I
Speaker:did get to travel a little bit for the job to very interesting
Speaker:parts of India. That's at the max I can say about that,
Speaker:but it was definitely a very interesting kickoff to a
Speaker:career within plant sciences. And in many ways, they
Speaker:kind of were the first people that maybe gave a little bit
Speaker:of impetus, maybe planted a seed, if you will, to
Speaker:what would then eventually become Nordic Tech. The path was not linear
Speaker:though, cuz I didn't go straight from that to Nordic Tech. So
Speaker:without going into specifics, you can't tease out the
Speaker:idea that there might be a story there to a podcaster, cuz I'll just pull
Speaker:that thread. Oh no. But I'm just curious, is there anything without naming names or
Speaker:locations, is there one story that, that comes to mind for you? Sure.
Speaker:I remember that there is a part of India where
Speaker:cannabis grows naturally, and there are, I think, 2
Speaker:or 3 states which are just south
Speaker:of the— I mean, geographically on a map, south of the Himalayas or the
Speaker:sub-Himalayan ranges. Okay. Historically, they have been known as
Speaker:sort of the places that supply cannabis
Speaker:to the country, but it's also the place where if you are actively looking
Speaker:for germplasm or seeds, that's where you're going to
Speaker:find them. They're growing out in the wild. So, it was quite an adventure, you
Speaker:know, traveling to these locations and sitting and listening to
Speaker:the stories that some of the farmers had to tell.
Speaker:And what they didn't understand is, why do you want the seeds, right?
Speaker:That was the interesting part. That's not the fun part.
Speaker:Exactly. They're like, are you sure you don't want this other stuff? And I was
Speaker:like, you can't take that with you. That's funny. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker:So you had a couple of short stints as you move into Nordetect with, uh,
Speaker:Space Tenant and Liv. Any highlights from those
Speaker:engagements as you were coming up with the idea, or that helped for
Speaker:what would eventually become Nordetect? Yeah, Liv was great because it was
Speaker:a close friend of mine who was a founder of the company, and he was
Speaker:getting it off the ground. And that was just about when I moved
Speaker:into Denmark, and I was looking to really kind of
Speaker:make a mark, right? Try and make a splash. And it was an
Speaker:opportunity to really kind of get a little bit back into
Speaker:engineering, sort of this weird hybrid background of engineering
Speaker:and plant sciences. And I kind of almost felt that this
Speaker:was an opportunity to leverage some of the engineering skills and
Speaker:also provide a bit of learning. I had just found a hackerspace at the
Speaker:time, so kind of geeking out a little bit on programming and
Speaker:electronics. Okay. And this was a short stint
Speaker:with him. Almost like an impromptu co-founder of the
Speaker:company. I still stay on as an advisor, but I
Speaker:built the early prototypes and kind of validated some of the assumptions that
Speaker:the company had at the time. And I think it was a lot of
Speaker:fun that kind of also gave me a little bit of what it would like
Speaker:to be, you know, in the startup scene. It was a completely different industry.
Speaker:It was medtech, but, you know, just a kind of small team with
Speaker:4 people and figuring things out and, you know, the wins
Speaker:and the losses that you feel on a daily basis. That was kind of a
Speaker:first taste of entrepreneurship in the startup world.
Speaker:Exactly. And Space 10 was, I think, really one of the most
Speaker:interesting experiences outside Nordisk. So Space
Speaker:10 is a design and innovation lab based out of Copenhagen
Speaker:that is backed by IKEA, solely backed by
Speaker:IKEA. Oh, wow. And although it is
Speaker:backed by IKEA, it has nothing to do with furniture. It has everything to do
Speaker:with sort of building a better everyday life for for the many people. I remember
Speaker:that slogan because they said it a lot. When I was there,
Speaker:this is interesting because we built the
Speaker:first indoor farm in Denmark. It was
Speaker:in a basement. Yeah, it was in a basement in Copenhagen's
Speaker:meatpacking district. Okay. In a room that was actually, I
Speaker:think, a meat cellar at one point, right? Because you could tell
Speaker:from the tiles and the sort of industrial taps and
Speaker:things that you had and the ventilation and stuff. I think we put together
Speaker:6 systems, and we were growing lettuce,
Speaker:baby leaves, and microgreens. Okay. In this basement as a
Speaker:proof of concept. Yeah. So this would have been, uh,
Speaker:2017? Yep, 2017. Yeah.
Speaker:Wow. And it's interesting to see because it's not such a surprise when you think
Speaker:about IKEA in terms of innovation and, you know, creating
Speaker:environments, habitable environments for people. And it just makes sense
Speaker:that this is something they would be interested in. And I think there's been some
Speaker:recent news about them diving deeper into the indoor agtech space as
Speaker:well recently. Exactly. I think that that was one of the functions that Space
Speaker:10 played. It kind of exposed them to these
Speaker:spaced-out concepts and, you know, made it,
Speaker:you know, in a kind of playful way approachable. So you'd have
Speaker:executives that came by at the time and then really kind of
Speaker:got deep dived into what those things were and, you know,
Speaker:without having to go through and maybe even express interest in a
Speaker:topic, right? So now on the other hand, it is,
Speaker:I think it's going, I don't even, I can't remember the names of the companies
Speaker:that they've signed with, but they have investments. I believe they have an investment in
Speaker:AeroFarms. They have launched with a
Speaker:couple of different providers, either in-store or
Speaker:production just outside their stores. Because
Speaker:I think this is one of the other interesting facts, IKEA is I think the
Speaker:7th or 8th largest restaurant chain in the world.
Speaker:Wow. But people don't realize that because it's all these restaurants in
Speaker:the stores. So, I think that they have definitely a big impact that they
Speaker:could make if they, you know, actually deployed indoor ag
Speaker:at scale. Yeah, that's something I was having a conversation with Ali
Speaker:Danyali from Harvests, and he's got a
Speaker:great— what he has called, he's penned his indoor farming as a service
Speaker:model. So, it's interesting because he's having conversations with the people who
Speaker:are placing those big orders, and it's usually the people that are behind the scenes.
Speaker:It's the restaurant groups, it's the cruise lines, it's the hotel
Speaker:chains, it's the IKEAs of the world. And, you know, I think we
Speaker:forget sometimes how much food is consumed at those
Speaker:establishments and that are not traditional groceries and restaurants.
Speaker:Oh yes, for sure. I think that, that the food chain— I think that was
Speaker:one of the first things I evaluated with them was the process of
Speaker:going from production to consumption, and it's not
Speaker:as linear as you would think. And so yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker:So now moving into present day, or at least
Speaker:start of Norditech, we're big fans of origin stories here. So tell me a
Speaker:little bit about the story of the founding of it and a little bit
Speaker:about your co-founders and where the idea came from. So
Speaker:even though Space 10 happened in 2017, the idea for
Speaker:And back then the idea was called
Speaker:PhytoMetrica and that sort of meant like
Speaker:plant measurements. And this is in late 2016,
Speaker:my co-founder Palak Sehgal, who I've known since
Speaker:my bachelor's. Okay. She was a researcher at
Speaker:the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and
Speaker:was working on medical diagnostics. And I was in Copenhagen sort of
Speaker:working with Liv and kind of doing these electronic
Speaker:projects. And at that time, I think
Speaker:that was the year that Prime Minister Modi came into power in
Speaker:India. And a big part of his campaign was this thing called the Soil
Speaker:Health Card. It was— Okay. A kind of report card that you would
Speaker:get of your land feeding into this concept of, you know, our land is our
Speaker:wealth. It's the productive capacity of the nation. But
Speaker:after, so the sort of implementation didn't live up to
Speaker:the expectation that you know, was promised. And that was
Speaker:kind of from the ground level, right? Maybe it was great on the top, but
Speaker:I think at the ground level, if you spoke to farmers who had to do
Speaker:these tests, they didn't really feel the value. And a lot of
Speaker:it had to do with timing. And so when she was working in medical
Speaker:diagnostics, we were chatting about how, you know,
Speaker:can we not do what happened to the medical diagnostics industry
Speaker:about 40 years ago for agriculture? And that's kind of
Speaker:where this, that was a spark, right? Yeah. You can get
Speaker:a sort of a glucose test for diabetes patients. They do them
Speaker:every day, a finger prick test at home, and you get, you
Speaker:know, glucose data that's life-saving. And so why
Speaker:can't you do soil testing back in that time,
Speaker:soil testing that could potentially ensure richer harvests and
Speaker:also prevent you from polluting with too much fertilizer? That was
Speaker:kind of like the spark. Okay. And both being technologists, it was like,
Speaker:oh wow, I can leverage the kind of knowledge I'm gaining from the
Speaker:research I'm doing now. And I was along the lines of, oh, I was a
Speaker:big fan of computer vision. I said, well, I can whip up a device and
Speaker:we can get this going. So that was kind of the initial spark
Speaker:and it was sort of like it laid the foundations for where we are today.
Speaker:We don't actively target outdoors, but
Speaker:that was sort of a function of a couple of different things, you know,
Speaker:deep technology companies having— what you see is with
Speaker:diagnostics, you see it when it's on the market, but a lot of
Speaker:these medtech innovations, you know, what we didn't realize took decades to
Speaker:come to market. So the first couple of years
Speaker:was heavy technology development. And it was all
Speaker:about outdoors and soil and farming and, you know, kind of
Speaker:enabling farmers to use less fertilizer. And so talk a
Speaker:little bit about the evolution. I love the mission of the company, improve
Speaker:the equity, quality, and footprint of food through technology.
Speaker:I'm sure that went through a couple of iterations as well. But can you talk
Speaker:a little bit about, you know, how you decide what you started with in terms
Speaker:of what Nordetect was going to be working on and how that's evolved
Speaker:over the years? So when you consider the why, right, like, why do
Speaker:you want to build a piece of technology that can measure
Speaker:chemicals in soil and water and plants. The purpose,
Speaker:which I don't wanna claim, you know, that this was my
Speaker:idea, it came from Palak where she talked about how in
Speaker:India there are farmers that take on a lot of debt
Speaker:to buy fertilizer and other inputs that, you know, one bad
Speaker:season and they can't pay back debt. And it's not to banks, it's to loan
Speaker:sharks. So there were suicides in
Speaker:the orders of tens of thousands. Yeah, I
Speaker:remember reading about that. Yeah. Yeah. And that kind of
Speaker:was one side of it, right? These people are
Speaker:extremely important to the nation, a major part of GDP.
Speaker:And if they can't produce, they cannot only feed their
Speaker:families. So that's a food security question, but also
Speaker:supply to the nation. And I think that sort of the vision for the
Speaker:company stemmed from that. And although, you know, it's a tech
Speaker:solution at the end of the day, right? we still hold that close to heart.
Speaker:Like, this is where at scale, this is where we want to go. We don't—
Speaker:of course, we sell in the US, we sell in Canada. But for us as
Speaker:founders, the vision is really to be able to
Speaker:provide either a product or a service that can help
Speaker:de-risk cultivation for those farmers. Yeah.
Speaker:Maybe that's the year 10 goal or something like that. But I mean, eventually,
Speaker:that's where we want to get to. And food security, I think
Speaker:from the time we did our master's in the UK, food security was always a
Speaker:big topic. And realizing that it's kind of what we're seeing now,
Speaker:there are certain— in a globalized food chain, there are certain
Speaker:regions that will produce large amounts,
Speaker:way more than they need. And then you will have other regions that are dependent.
Speaker:And I think that building this resilience is also one of the factors
Speaker:that we hold close in indoor agriculture, is so
Speaker:strongly touted as one of those industries that can actually build
Speaker:food resilience in different parts of the world. So
Speaker:a lot of these things, you know, when, if you work with an agency,
Speaker:they really want to get to the guts of where do you guys come from
Speaker:with this product and why, like you could have done anything with your lives, why
Speaker:you're doing this. And I think that these are some of the emotions
Speaker:that kind of come together when we think about the company and why
Speaker:In the hard times, we were able to push forward. And talk a
Speaker:little bit about the challenges as— would this have been your first time as CEO?
Speaker:Yes. So this is my first venture driving it
Speaker:from start to now. I think that it has definitely been
Speaker:an interesting journey specifically because of
Speaker:certain factors that no one has a playbook for, right?
Speaker:When we were, I think, late 2019, we were a
Speaker:soil company, we were looking at soil testing, we were getting products into
Speaker:the hands of farmers, thinking about how we're going to
Speaker:scale this because outdoor ag is huge,
Speaker:expansive in terms of space. And so
Speaker:when COVID hit, we had to figure out how to
Speaker:sort of be able to sit in a building or at home
Speaker:and then sell. And most, it's a physical product. Most of these things
Speaker:need an onboarding, it needs a demo, there's skepticism. How do you convince the
Speaker:client or the customer without actually being there in front of them? And
Speaker:I think that that has been one of the biggest
Speaker:challenges as a first-time CEO to overcome. Definitely
Speaker:a curveball, right? Because everything you learned pre-COVID
Speaker:might still apply, but how do you, especially
Speaker:with a hardware company where you have physical products, right? You need to go into
Speaker:the office, you need to put these things together, you have a supply
Speaker:chain. All of these things are, I would say,
Speaker:factors that maybe complicated things a little bit. In some ways, I kind of feel
Speaker:like maybe set us back a year. But the
Speaker:interesting thing is that that's happened to everyone, right? So a lot of
Speaker:industries, a lot of companies have kind of felt this exact same
Speaker:shift. Personally, it's been definitely a roller
Speaker:coaster. I think that anyone who says otherwise on their first time
Speaker:is either very lucky or maybe a little bit ignorant.
Speaker:But I think going through the highs and the lows from, you know,
Speaker:the idea to the patenting, to getting your first prototypes,
Speaker:destroying those prototypes, getting your first customer, losing your first
Speaker:customer. I think those, like one of our first investors said it the best.
Speaker:He said, it's like a sine wave and you have these peaks and
Speaker:these dips and you keep going up and down. And then as you mature
Speaker:as a founder and especially founder CEO, They don't
Speaker:get lower, you just get better at dealing with them, right? Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, you still experience the same. Yeah, yeah. As an entrepreneur
Speaker:and business owner myself, I think one of the hardest lessons to learn is to
Speaker:become comfortable with failure and not really see it as a negative but
Speaker:as a learning opportunity. And it's a function of, like, you know, in the dip
Speaker:of that sine wave, it's a measure of how quickly you get up,
Speaker:dust yourself off. There's no time to wallow in self-pity at that point.
Speaker:You have to keep moving forward. So it's an interesting muscle to develop. And
Speaker:that's— and obviously something like COVID, the
Speaker:playbooks just had to get thrown in the trash, like nothing that would work up
Speaker:until that point. And I think anyone who came out of that, it
Speaker:just has to have just a thicker skin, more resiliency, the
Speaker:ability to recover and bounce back, and the ability to be prepared for, you know,
Speaker:what is essentially a black swan event. But I think if something like that were
Speaker:to happen again, I think anyone who's made it through that would see that as
Speaker:a similar type of event and then, you know, put that same type of thinking
Speaker:into process into like, how do we address this event? And so I think
Speaker:overall, and not, you know, mitigating a lot of what happened during that
Speaker:time, but, you know, the folks that came out stronger, I think, are much more
Speaker:well-suited for the future. Oh, certainly. I think that
Speaker:with machine learning and neural networks and stuff, they say that
Speaker:if a model or network has seen something before,
Speaker:It's better suited to be able to predict what to do when it sees that
Speaker:again. And I think that that is a lot of training that we've
Speaker:received, startup founders and business owners. And just as
Speaker:the entire human race, you know, who is of a younger
Speaker:generation that hasn't seen some of the challenges like this before,
Speaker:or any hardship that like of this scale, it's
Speaker:definitely a life lesson that, you know, even if you see early warning signs of
Speaker:things like that coming up, You're gonna sort of look at how, what we can
Speaker:do to prepare. So for the benefit of the listener
Speaker:who may not know the specifics of NordAttack, your
Speaker:services, do you wanna give an overview of what the current offering
Speaker:is, who an ideal customer is, and where your focus is now?
Speaker:Yeah. So as with when we were founded, we
Speaker:are a portable analytical company.
Speaker:We develop hardware, software, and
Speaker:portable biosensors, disposable biosensors. The simplest
Speaker:way to think about it is like the COVID test, the quick test or the
Speaker:rapid test that you do. It's kind of a rapid test with an
Speaker:electronic device that helps you diagnose the status of
Speaker:your water, your soil, or your
Speaker:plant sap. And it provides a readout for the key
Speaker:macronutrients, your nitrates, phosphates, potassium, NPKs,
Speaker:and others, allowing you to understand how your
Speaker:your crop is performing. So it's kind of a sensor for crop health.
Speaker:And of late, we've put an enhanced emphasis on digital
Speaker:services. So we can digitize your lab
Speaker:reports. We provide you with easy-to-use tools to
Speaker:compare, 'cause a lot of the indoor ag community is
Speaker:focused on data generation and understanding and learning through
Speaker:iteration. And we've spent a lot of time working with customers
Speaker:to understand how we can make that process very simple. So
Speaker:we sell a subscription to a bundle of the
Speaker:analyzer, the microfluidic chips that actually give you the test,
Speaker:and then the digital platform all packaged together so that it's
Speaker:a simplified unified service. And if you need more tests, you can always
Speaker:top up. And what's been the reception or feedback
Speaker:from early clients or existing clients who
Speaker:have been happy with the service? And then what are some of the things that
Speaker:they're saying about it? I think what was really interesting is that
Speaker:we sort of, we say that we're faster than the lab because the lab takes
Speaker:5 days and, and this takes 5 minutes. And that was really the
Speaker:first response because they always wanted to compare the two, right?
Speaker:Yeah. And they would do the test and then they were like, okay, we're done.
Speaker:Okay. Wow. We've never had this before. Right. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker:Now we have to wait a week till we can figure out how good So
Speaker:I think the speed of actually generating this data from crop was definitely one
Speaker:of the wow factors for our first customers. And
Speaker:the fact, when we designed the product, we figured that this
Speaker:is going to be a farmer or this, the help that
Speaker:farmers have, like, let's say farmhands doing the testing
Speaker:outdoors. So we designed it in a way that was so easy to use, right?
Speaker:And I think that that was like, they're like, that's it. Like, what else do
Speaker:we have? Like, are there buttons or is there anything else that needs to happen?
Speaker:So that kind of played into it as well. And I think
Speaker:some of the downsides have been like the web platform or the sort of the
Speaker:digital product, it's not intuitive. Okay. So we've seen
Speaker:that as time progressed, we've sort of released early and released frequently.
Speaker:That's been our strategy. So we had early access customers starting
Speaker:March '21. Some of them, you know, we did
Speaker:3-month trial, they then converted and then they've seen us grow.
Speaker:So overall, it's been a journey going
Speaker:from a little bit of hesitancy, I have to say, because it's like,
Speaker:does it really work? How are you offering this? To now there's like, okay,
Speaker:you know, this is— when can we get more? Can you give us more
Speaker:parameters? Can you measure these things? Can you measure bacteria?
Speaker:Interesting. So, so I think that the feedback has been very motivating for
Speaker:us. And how much of it is an education process for
Speaker:some of these farms in terms of I'm coming from the business
Speaker:world. It's that maxim of what gets measured gets managed, right? I think it's Peter
Speaker:Drucker, if I've got that correct. But sometimes it's— they don't
Speaker:know what they don't know. And how much of that is prevalent in what you
Speaker:do in terms of educating them and showing them the benefits of doing the
Speaker:testing and having access to data that they may not have
Speaker:known that they needed, but then becomes a valuable part of their
Speaker:production process? You know, you hit the nail on the head with that one, right?
Speaker:Because In many ways, we've felt that there is an education
Speaker:process and just being a startup, you know, trying to
Speaker:get off the ground, we've had to really filter real hard.
Speaker:So you'll find customers that are already doing lab
Speaker:testing on a routine basis. They know exactly why they're doing it, what
Speaker:they're getting out of it. Those are just easy for us because we don't have
Speaker:to go through the education process. Some of the biggest names in
Speaker:the industry, who you would think are doing
Speaker:everything possible don't know this. Interesting. And that
Speaker:was the biggest thing. I'm like, you can't raise, you know, more
Speaker:than $10 to $15 million. I know that puts a few names out
Speaker:there, but, you know, you can't raise that much money and not have thought of
Speaker:this. Like, so I think that we sort of filter hard. We focus on
Speaker:people that already do testing. So they understand it because they immediately get the
Speaker:value, right? Yeah. You cut down the time, you give us this data that we
Speaker:can work with. Amazing. There have been clients and customers
Speaker:where we felt like we, it was worth the education.
Speaker:So we would put in the extra effort. We've done, we on
Speaker:like being sort of from a scientific background, we always felt like proof is in
Speaker:the pudding. So we need to do validations. We need to work with third-party labs
Speaker:to get this product verified so we could put out a white
Speaker:paper that people can trust and That's kind of always been close to us.
Speaker:But right now we are working with kind of
Speaker:almost call them field trials, almost air quotes here, because
Speaker:you're not doing it in the field, but you're sort of, you're doing a study
Speaker:over a period of time to show not a
Speaker:non-believer, but maybe someone who doesn't understand the value, the impact
Speaker:of using technology like this. So it's definitely been an
Speaker:interesting journey. I think we're very much in the upper
Speaker:segment of the market, working with customers that have raised a lot of
Speaker:money, that have a plant science team
Speaker:that, you know, already know. So a lot of these companies have R&D
Speaker:teams, if you're— and they're startups, right? As a startup, if you have
Speaker:a big R&D team, you've raised a fair amount of money.
Speaker:And they go through the process of vetting the product, and then with the eventual
Speaker:goal of implementing it on a routine operation. Companies that maybe
Speaker:don't have that, are slower. And,
Speaker:you know, I think that that's just the way it is. And once they see
Speaker:other companies using it, they'll start asking why, like, what are you getting
Speaker:out of that? So it's a process. It seems
Speaker:that there's an opportunity, or this is something that
Speaker:you're probably alluding to already, these smaller companies that don't have
Speaker:the R&D teams that haven't received the investment for R&D teams, it's almost like A
Speaker:function of what you provide is almost like an outsourced R&D-as-a-service
Speaker:functionality. It's funny because that has been a question
Speaker:that has come up several times, right? Yeah. So you're doing
Speaker:the sales conversation and usually
Speaker:you expect standard issue questions. How much does it cost and
Speaker:what can it do and does it do this and that? And then
Speaker:several times we've got the question, you know, do you also
Speaker:provide consulting services on top of that so you can help us improve?
Speaker:And that was something that we weren't necessarily thinking of, which,
Speaker:you know, it is a valuable avenue.
Speaker:We're thinking about how we can provide this in a digital way, because we're not—
Speaker:we weren't set out to be a consulting company, or,
Speaker:you know, that's an industry in itself, the
Speaker:agronomist/advisor industry for agriculture. But yes,
Speaker:I think in many ways, one of the VCs that I spoke with,
Speaker:They said that we think the— we don't
Speaker:invest in vertical farms, but we
Speaker:want to see the tech providers that can take
Speaker:technology and help upgrade or upskill
Speaker:the smaller farms and bring them up to the level of
Speaker:these larger farms with a lot of investment. Companies that can do that
Speaker:are really the ones that we see will be, you know, the big ones of
Speaker:the next day. Yeah, it's that age-old example here in the States
Speaker:that the people who actually made the money in the gold rush are not the
Speaker:people looking for the gold, but the people who were selling the picks and the
Speaker:shovels. Exactly. Yes, yes, sir. How big is the
Speaker:company now? We are 10 staff,
Speaker:and we just hired our first staff member in the US,
Speaker:which is— Oh, good. Yeah, exactly. So we, you know, that was it. We've been
Speaker:visiting New York, I think, every 6 months. And if
Speaker:it hadn't been for COVID, I think we would have been 10
Speaker:people in the US. I think at the time when we got an
Speaker:investment from an investor in New York State, and part of it
Speaker:was towards bringing and establishing a US footprint.
Speaker:Interesting. And when COVID happened, they kind of removed that term
Speaker:because they were like, we're not going to expect people to do that, right? And
Speaker:so we've just seen the industry grow so fast in New
Speaker:York State, both on the East Coast and the West Coast. And so it was
Speaker:obvious that we We needed to, we needed to have a place there.
Speaker:And sort of with this first recruit, it includes
Speaker:me spending more time in the US and sort of building out
Speaker:right now a commercial and operations team, but potentially
Speaker:doing some amount of production of key components in the US as well.
Speaker:What activity do you see in New York? I'm curious because I grew up in
Speaker:New York. So I grew up in Yonkers, New York, just outside Manhattan. I've
Speaker:lived in New York City as well. I consider New York City my home. Home
Speaker:now is Minneapolis, but I'm just curious what activity you're seeing in New
Speaker:York. So right now it's primarily
Speaker:commercial, so sales and operations, but
Speaker:upstate New York, right? Rochester, which is where the investor was
Speaker:from, we see that there's a lot of knowledge when it comes to manufacturing,
Speaker:right? You have had companies like Kodak, Bosch and Lomb, and
Speaker:Xerox that were kind of stalwarts of their day
Speaker:that came out of Rochester. And so there is, and of
Speaker:course the universities that provide excellent personnel,
Speaker:graduates coming out of them. And you have a series, a
Speaker:network of service providers that do anything
Speaker:from lens grinding to putting together optical
Speaker:instruments and then consumables.
Speaker:So there's a lot of expertise there. So it's not something that we're actively
Speaker:doing now, But it's potentially, depending on
Speaker:how the company grows, one of the avenues outside of sales and marketing that
Speaker:we see of immense value. We also have a small connection to Cornell
Speaker:University. We won a competition that they hosted last
Speaker:year called Grow NY, a food and ag competition. And so there's a
Speaker:kind of link with them as well. And they help us with kind of regional
Speaker:landing and integration, trying to get customers and support
Speaker:systems and so on. So, it's safe to say that you'll be a regular attendee
Speaker:at Indoor AgTech NYC? Definitely, I think so. I think that,
Speaker:you know, when I chatted to the organizers, they say, yeah, you know, you
Speaker:come in as the startup, and then next year, we're hoping that you're
Speaker:sponsoring a bigger booth. You come in with a bigger
Speaker:sponsorship. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think what they did, and I think the company's called
Speaker:Rethink Events, I think their expertise is in these types of
Speaker:events. I don't know that they actually like indoor ag tech specialists, but they do
Speaker:the event part really, really well. And I think that showed in the
Speaker:event that they put on there. I think there were a couple of, um, similar
Speaker:ones because I think they tied it into the— was it the— it was like
Speaker:a produce one going on beforehand
Speaker:that in that same location, I think. And they were— they produced both of those.
Speaker:Exactly. They usually— they, they're sort of their claim to fame, or at least when
Speaker:I found out about the big splash that they made, was it was called the
Speaker:World Agritech Summit. Oh, okay. It was outdoor ag and it
Speaker:brought together, you know, the Bayers, the Syngentas of the
Speaker:world. So the big ag. Yeah. And that was their flagship event, I believe
Speaker:happens in San Francisco and London.
Speaker:I think I haven't been to one of those, but I think that they are
Speaker:really professional at doing these events and they always tag them
Speaker:together. So I think there's alternative protein and then—
Speaker:Yeah, that was it, I think. Yeah, exactly. And so indoor ag and
Speaker:alternative protein, very hot topics in the agri food tech sides
Speaker:of things. And I think what they do is they pair
Speaker:outdoor farming and animal agriculture together.
Speaker:So that makes sense. Exactly. And I love that they give the opportunity for
Speaker:smaller companies to have those smaller tables, because I was just— I was
Speaker:fascinated. And I recognized that from the podcasting conferences that I
Speaker:used to go to, that you would see some of the early, early startups have
Speaker:like a small table where they'd have to stand most of the time.
Speaker:But I think that was interesting, because it The fact that you made the decision
Speaker:to be there, you know, just speaks for how much—
Speaker:how important it is for you to get the word out about what you're doing.
Speaker:And it's how we met. And I think I've got a couple of calls with
Speaker:some of the other smaller tables that were out there in the startup phase. It's
Speaker:just— it's fascinating for me because I love origin stories, and I think your story
Speaker:has been really, really interesting for you to share. I think that that's the catch,
Speaker:right? You want to get them early also, so, you know, you kind of— yeah,
Speaker:you're the one that brought them on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you
Speaker:think about where the industry is headed and how quickly it's
Speaker:moving, what do you see as the opportunities for
Speaker:Nordetect in terms of growth, either working
Speaker:with the same caliber of clients that you have now or even, you know, branching
Speaker:out into different use cases? I think that we're
Speaker:definitely in a bit of a crisis now with energy, right? So the
Speaker:industry is feeling the ripple effect at least within Europe.
Speaker:You see indoor ag in Europe definitely being hit
Speaker:by this. So when we consider Nordatect
Speaker:and its growth trajectory, we see that we try and work with
Speaker:customers as much as we can to influence our R&D. And
Speaker:so without sort of giving away too much of the plan,
Speaker:we see that one of two things is going to stick.
Speaker:We're focusing heavily on being experts in nutrients and
Speaker:crop health from a nutrient perspective. and combining that with
Speaker:climate. So how does your
Speaker:climate controller and what you're feeding your crops from an environmental
Speaker:perspective affect what they're eating in terms of
Speaker:nutrients? And the second one is,
Speaker:how do you ensure that you're not doing things that can harm them?
Speaker:Because a lot of the times, like, if you had to boil it down, why
Speaker:do people come to us? They, usually start thinking
Speaker:about this stuff when they see losses. And so, you know,
Speaker:everyone wants to figure out why are these plants dying and what's going on here.
Speaker:And I think that that's really the future of the company, whether it's
Speaker:hardware or software, it is being able
Speaker:to diagnose these issues and be able to provide
Speaker:solutions towards it. The diagnostic side, of course, being the
Speaker:analytical tools and the solutions being data analytics
Speaker:combined not only with our own inputs, but also with climate. We
Speaker:see that as the short term. The long term, coming
Speaker:back to what I mentioned originally, it is
Speaker:still a dream to go outdoors. It is still
Speaker:the vision to be able to impact the next, you know,
Speaker:billion people on the planet because we are firm believers
Speaker:that as the price of oil goes up, The price of
Speaker:fertilizer tracks exactly along with that. Yeah. And
Speaker:so I'm confident that we are, we're
Speaker:biding our time, we're growing at a sustainable pace
Speaker:to eventually go outdoors. And outdoors is,
Speaker:it's huge, right? It's an industry where you need a lot of
Speaker:muscle, you need a lot of capital, and you need scale in order
Speaker:to truly make an impact. And so, I think that coming out of the
Speaker:greenhouse and really moving outdoors is a future that I
Speaker:personally would like to see for the company and one that is not too far
Speaker:away. That makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I think every
Speaker:CEO and founder that I've spoken to, you know, everyone's on the same page.
Speaker:It's an all hands on deck moment. You know, every company, whether it's
Speaker:someone that you consider a competitor or doing something similar, like it's such a huge
Speaker:problem to tackle, that we need everyone working on this with their own
Speaker:specialties. And then, you know, figuring out, you know, there's the
Speaker:overall problem of food scarcity, the supply chain issues, the
Speaker:climate change issues, the sustainability issues. There's so many things to tackle. I
Speaker:think everyone in this industry is gonna have their hands full for quite some time.
Speaker:Yeah, I think we need all the competition we get because it's a
Speaker:huge market out there. And, you know, you see every time
Speaker:you see a potential competitor crop up, A, it validates
Speaker:it because, you know, that there's, you know, people, the market is so big that
Speaker:there's no one winner. It's very different
Speaker:than just the software in the big tech world. And B,
Speaker:it's a noble cause, right? You, yeah, yeah, it's a business,
Speaker:but you need to help grow more food. We need more food.
Speaker:So I think that, yeah, as you said, all hands on deck. What's a
Speaker:tough question you've had to ask yourself recently? How do I want to grow the
Speaker:company? I think it's we're at an inflection point right now where
Speaker:we have to take in, not have to, but we should take in more capital.
Speaker:And then with capital comes dilution. And so
Speaker:there's this dilemma in how you want to grow the company and with
Speaker:who you want to grow the company. Because if you look at the investment market
Speaker:between Europe and the US, and we kind of see ourselves as a part of
Speaker:both, you we'll see very different
Speaker:motivations coming out of American investors
Speaker:and different motivations coming out of European investors. You
Speaker:know, I think that's really a challenge. Can you speak to those a little bit?
Speaker:What you see as the difference? Sure. Just from my experience, and
Speaker:this is by no means a generalization, but what we've seen is
Speaker:that at events in the US, when we've, you know, we've pitched in Europe,
Speaker:And when we've pitched in Europe, what we've kind of been told is that,
Speaker:yeah, this is great, but where are you now? What have you achieved
Speaker:today? And what's your— there's a lot of focus on the P&L and
Speaker:the balance sheet and arriving at profitability real quick,
Speaker:even if it's at a very small scale. And when you look at
Speaker:American investors, we were almost told the opposite, like,
Speaker:you guys don't brag enough. And so it's very
Speaker:interesting to see because it, or maybe historically, it's been about the big
Speaker:vision, they want to see how you're going to, you know, scale to a
Speaker:massive size company, capture huge market share, and then figure out
Speaker:profitability at that time, because they know you're going to go through a series of
Speaker:funding rounds if you are successful. And so I see that
Speaker:being in the agricultural industry, it is a, you know,
Speaker:you have to do your time in the industry. There's a lot of
Speaker:companies that go up and down real quick. And
Speaker:so it almost feels like it would be a
Speaker:no-brainer to raise capital in the US just because
Speaker:it is, there's a lot more in terms of sheer number of venture capitalists.
Speaker:But that's a big dilemma. That's a big question. How do we want to grow
Speaker:the company? Do we want to consider this differential
Speaker:mindset of maybe reaching profitability faster and maybe growing a bit
Speaker:slower? Or do you want to take in a lot of cash and then
Speaker:grow very aggressively? And the, you know, the stock
Speaker:market and the scenario there hasn't really helped at all
Speaker:just because there's a lot of confusion and
Speaker:uncertainty going on. So I think that, you know, all those things put together,
Speaker:that's definitely been one of the questions that sort of keeps me awake at night,
Speaker:if you will. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, I was thinking about the recent
Speaker:iGrow news that talked about— they do, I think, a Monday one
Speaker:where they show the stock price of all the indoor ag companies, and they
Speaker:were all like negative. So it wasn't a good sign, but I think it's just
Speaker:a function of where we are in terms of like what we want to call
Speaker:a recession or not. But I think it's— I think to your point
Speaker:and to the conversations that you've been having with these investors, if they see the
Speaker:opportunity and they see that you have the subject matter expertise
Speaker:and they've done a bit of their due diligence, then I think that's where they
Speaker:get the confidence from in terms of investing and seeing the bigger
Speaker:play, because I think if they're an experienced investor, they can spot
Speaker:trends and they know they can see overall directionality
Speaker:of an industry. And I think they— that's where they see the positive
Speaker:signs here. Yeah, I think that some of the more experienced
Speaker:investors I've spoken to, they've said, you know, we're not
Speaker:worried about your stage of company when you're at a Series
Speaker:C, D, where you are looking at your IPO and you need to
Speaker:take in cash to burn to get those numbers perfect for an
Speaker:IPO. Those are the companies we're really worried about. And of course it has a
Speaker:trickle-down effect on earlier stages, but we know
Speaker:that, you know, you've got another, you've got a good 3 or 4 years before
Speaker:you're even thinking about that kind of stuff. So we're not worried. And
Speaker:this comes from really mature investors who maybe, maybe the partners at the
Speaker:firm have invested during a downturn and things like that. So as
Speaker:we wrap up, the hour seems to have flown by. So I want
Speaker:to thank you. It's just a testament to
Speaker:what a lively conversation it's been so far. So, you know, you are
Speaker:familiar with the podcast, you're familiar with the folks who listen to it and some
Speaker:of the past guests I've had on. Do you have an ask for this
Speaker:industry, for the listeners of this show? I would say
Speaker:specifically, This is gonna be funny. I think that
Speaker:there's sometimes a little bit of a lack of respect for food
Speaker:and for the way it's produced. And so I think maybe
Speaker:before you buy that extra
Speaker:head of lettuce, before you buy that extra, you
Speaker:know, ingredient that you may not need and store that in the fridge
Speaker:and then throw it away, maybe consider the farmer or
Speaker:the indoor farmer that that kind of really put a whole
Speaker:lot of time and energy spending money potentially on
Speaker:companies like us who would help them improve
Speaker:only to produce something that you just threw away. I'd say from a more
Speaker:human side of things, that would definitely be something that
Speaker:would make the world a little better place. And to
Speaker:any indoor farmers out there, if you're looking at
Speaker:improving your crop health and your harvests, you can
Speaker:always reach out to us at Nordetect, even if it is just for a friendly
Speaker:chat. Well, yeah, I definitely would encourage the listener to do that.
Speaker:nordetect.com. Any other place you want to send folks to connect with you or the
Speaker:company? Yeah, you can always reach out to me personally on LinkedIn,
Speaker:Keenan Pinto on LinkedIn. I'm happy to spar, even if it is
Speaker:with a company that's maybe getting off the ground. I really enjoy
Speaker:startup culture and kind of know where I was back when I started. So
Speaker:yeah, happy to help. Well, Keenan, I appreciate you making time. I
Speaker:know it's late for you there, so hopefully you get to wrap up your day.
Speaker:I really enjoyed our conversation. I appreciate you sharing your, your fascinating and,
Speaker:and really interesting origin story with our listeners. Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker:It's been a pleasure. Thanks again to Keenan for coming on the show and sharing
Speaker:his story. As always, full show notes available at
Speaker:verticalfarmingpodcast.com. Thanks to our season 6
Speaker:title sponsor Cultivated. If you are looking into a vertical farm and don't know where
Speaker:to start or which technology would suit your needs, reach out to them today. Best
Speaker:of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners. Learn
Speaker:more at cultivated.com, and that's spelled
Speaker:C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com. Just leave out that last E.
Speaker:If you'll be attending the Global Produce and Floral Show in Orlando, Florida this
Speaker:October 27th through 29th, then please visit the
Speaker:NetLed booth at the FutureTech Pavilion. The team would love to meet you.
Speaker:Podcast production and marketing provided by Fullcast. Learn more about how podcasts can be
Speaker:beneficial for your brand at fullcast.co. As a
Speaker:reminder, if you're enjoying this show, please leave us a rating and a review at
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp. We'll be sure to read those out on
Speaker:future episodes. Tune in next week, another great
Speaker:conversation, and this time it's with repeat visitor
Speaker:to the podcast, Henry Gordon-Smith of Agritech
Speaker:Excited to bring him on for a really, really powerful,
Speaker:emotional conversation about some things that have been happening in his
Speaker:life and his journey in the world of agtech.
Speaker:And as a fun fact, I'll be able to connect with
Speaker:Henry in the AgraMe conference. I'll be in Dubai. I'm getting on a
Speaker:plane tomorrow as of this recording, getting ready
Speaker:for my 18-hour trip. Thanks again to Henry. Thank you. to Cultivated for helping make
Speaker:that possible. I'm looking forward to connect with Henry, who's going to be speaking
Speaker:there, Callum from IGS, and the team at Cultivated.
Speaker:Real excited. I'll have a full report for you when I get back. So excited
Speaker:to share that adventure with you. Until we meet again, here's to your health.
Speaker:Thanks for listening. To read the full show notes for this episode, which
Speaker:includes any links mentioned in the episode, as well as a full show
Speaker:transcription, visit verticalfarmingpodcast.com.
Speaker:There you can sign up for our email list to be notified when new
Speaker:episodes are published.
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