Shownotes
Episode Summary
David Ahmed is the Founder and CEO of HexaFarms, an Ag-Tech Startup that develops software for vertical-farming systems. They harvest data and leverage the potential of AI to identify optimal growth conditions for various crops grown in vertical farms. Today, Harry and David expound on the impact of Artificial Intelligence and other technologies on vertical farming, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and his amazing experience at Techstars Berlin.
Thanks to Our Sponsors
CEA Summit East - https://indoor.ag/cea-summit-east-2025/
Indoor AgCon - https://indoor.ag/
Key Takeaways
07:13 – Harry welcomes David Ahmed to the show to discuss his experience living in multiple countries across the world, how he got involved in vertical farming and his passion for biology and computer science
14:57 – Square Roots, inspiration and moving to United Arab Emirates (UAE)
19:47 – A ‘Never Satisfied’ Mentality and Ahmed’s experience at Techstars Berlin
26:34 – David’s growth as a first-time CEO
29:55 – The ideal partner for HexaFarms
32:01 – Disrupting the norms and how David thinks about hiring and growing a world-class team
35:37 – David speculates on Artificial Intelligence, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and potentially starting his own farm
43:36 – The biggest challenges posed to HexaFarms currently
45:55 – A tough question David has had to ask himself recently and the origin of the name, HexaFarms
51:47 – Harry thanks David for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can connect with him and learn more about Hexafarms
52:49 – A specific ask David has for the audience
Tweetable Quotes
“Just being able to grow food indoors is not an achievement. What is an achievement is can you commercialize it.” (11:04) (David)
“I have actually tried to look into myself and understand why I like plants. And, I think the answer is that I see in plants the same version of a computer algorithm. Plants are really fascinating, beautiful algorithms interacting with physical properties in nature…I think the meta-answer is that I like plants just because they’re like algorithms and it gives me a sense of understanding and appreciation of things around me. I see a divine design in plants, and the same with computers. Computers are manmade and plants are Godmade.” (12:10) (David)
“On our website we say, ‘Forty percent cost reduction,’ and I mean it. We have been running a farm and doing experiments. When I started doing our work, we set up a lab and we really are trying to be as realistic as possible, measuring every single thing like, ‘How many minutes am I spending on my seedling? How many minutes am I spending on harvesting? How many times do I have to go down to the lab to check on stuff?’” (20:26) (David)
“I do question the norms. I mean, c’mon, take traditional farming. Tilling the ground is the conventional wisdom, but it’s not necessarily true. If you go to India, literally at the end of the season the whole swath of land is just going to be tilled. And they think it gives air and airflow in the soil, but it’s not true.” (32:16) (David)
“Our AI can also take into account the factors I mentioned: CO2, temperature, humidity, PH, more factors. It can easily co-relate those things. It can predict harvest time, using normal cameras.” (40:57) (David)
“The name HexaFarms comes from hexagon, which is a mathematically super beautiful structure. So, if you look at honey bees and honeycombs, the structure is a hexagon. It has a bunch of other qualities, but one of them is that if you have to 3D pack something…it makes the most efficient structure.” (50:19) (David)
Resources Mentioned
David’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-ahmed/
HexaFarms – https://www.hexafarms.com/
HexaFarms Email – [email protected]
HexaFarms LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/hexa-farms/
HexaFarms Twitter – https://twitter.com/HexaFarms/
HexaFarms Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/hexafarms/
Square Roots – https://www.squarerootsgrow.com/
Techstars Berlin – https://www.linkedin.com/company/techstars-berlin-accelerator/
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/
🎙️🎙️🎙️
Podcast Production and Marketing by FullCast
Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/
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
Speaker:accelerating, the money is moving, and the winners are already separating from the
Speaker:pack. If you're investing, building, or buying in this space,
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 have actually tried to look into
Speaker:myself and understand why do I like plants. And I think the answer is
Speaker:that I see in plants a same version of
Speaker:a computer algorithm. So like plants are really
Speaker:fascinating, beautiful algorithms interacting with physical
Speaker:properties in nature. I think the, yeah, the meta answer is
Speaker:that I like plants Just because they're like algorithms, and
Speaker:it gives me a sense of understanding and appreciation of
Speaker:things around. I see like a divine design in plants.
Speaker:And same with computers. Computers are man-made and plants are God-made or
Speaker:something.
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. Regular listeners, welcome back.
Speaker:If you're a first-timer, then I'm sure you're in the right place if you're looking
Speaker:for a show where we interview fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading
Speaker:vertical farming companies from around the world. I'm your host, Harry Duran.
Speaker:In case you missed last week's episode, we had a return visit from Alison Coff.
Speaker:She's now the Chief Growth Officer at IUNO. It's a company that's building the
Speaker:future of CEA through their AI-driven Luna platform,
Speaker:which enables growers to develop a feedback loop capturing data and managing
Speaker:processes to create precise, predictable production.
Speaker:Allison and I talk about the merging of Artemis and IUNO, her new role as
Speaker:Chief Growth Officer, and the many ways she's been helping to promote and empower
Speaker:female founders and entrepreneurs. This week, we have a very interesting
Speaker:interview, high vibe, high energy, and it's with David Ahmed.
Speaker:He's the founder and CEO of Hexafarms, which is one of the companies out of
Speaker:Techstars Berlin that's developing software for vertical farms. The company's using
Speaker:some forward-thinking technology and AI to identify the optimal growth
Speaker:conditions for various crops grown indoors. It's really fascinating
Speaker:stuff. And given their experience in the Techstars incubator, David has
Speaker:been learning a lot very, very quickly. He even introduced a new term to
Speaker:me, normalized difference vegetation index, which I was not
Speaker:aware of and which you'll learn more about in this conversation. Don't forget, if you
Speaker:enjoyed this episode or past episodes, I'd love it if you leave a rating and
Speaker:a review at ratethispodcast.com/vfp. I'm looking
Speaker:forward to reading those out next. Okay, enough of me talking. Before we
Speaker:jump into this uninterrupted conversation with David, here are a few words from the
Speaker:folks that support this show. This episode is brought to you by Indoor
Speaker:AgCon 2023. I'm so happy to have been working with the
Speaker:team last year. Indoor AgCon 2022 was my
Speaker:very first indoor farming conference, so it was really eye-opening for me.
Speaker:So I'll always be grateful to the team there for rolling out that carpet for
Speaker:me. And I really had a good time meeting a lot of past guests,
Speaker:and excited to join them again this year. Entering its 10th year in a row,
Speaker:it's the largest trade show and conference for vertical farming and CEA, and it's returning
Speaker:to Caesars Forum Conference Center in Las Vegas on February
Speaker:27th and 28th of 2023. Once again, they'll be co-located with the
Speaker:National Growers Association Show as well, which is a really good fit for them.
Speaker:The conference keeps growing, and this year it's doubled in size. The expo floor
Speaker:now has more than 170 booths filled with new product
Speaker:resources and solutions to explore. You'll hear from experts, including
Speaker:CEOs, growers, investors, and others in the field during this
Speaker:full-scale educational conference. As always, you'll be able to connect with
Speaker:peers, grocers, and other potential new business partners at their great networking
Speaker:events. I haven't even gotten to the best part. The team at Indoor
Speaker:AgCon has given listeners of this show 20%
Speaker:off their full access conference pass. All you have to do is use promo
Speaker:code VFP, as in Vertical Farming Podcast, and sign up at
Speaker:indoor.ag. See you there. So David Ahmed, founder and
Speaker:CEO of Hexafarms, thank you for joining me on the Vertical Farming
Speaker:Podcast. My pleasure. So where is home for you?
Speaker:Germany. How long you been there? Like for 3 and a half years.
Speaker:I have been actually— so I was born and raised in India,
Speaker:but then I've been moving and relocating for last 7 years,
Speaker:a bunch of countries. At one point, the US. I was also in
Speaker:Israel. And now it's Germany or Deutschland. I was
Speaker:just in UAE, so I was there for the AgriMe conference
Speaker:in Dubai, first time ever. Yeah, that's crazy because actually, so the
Speaker:idea of Hexafarms, I was in New York, so Manhattan. So I was
Speaker:working with farmers in New York, in Manhattan City, like trying to get to
Speaker:connect farmers and the co-op gardens with people living in
Speaker:Manhattan so as to give them access to organic food supply.
Speaker:I think 2018. So connecting the co-ops with the farmers. And then I was at
Speaker:the farmer's market in Union Square Park one day because the
Speaker:best approach when building a startup is so-called the lean startup approach, right? So
Speaker:you just talk to people, validate the idea, find out your value
Speaker:proposition. So I was in Union Square Park and I was really
Speaker:talking to farmers, like a lot of them at those days. And then there was
Speaker:this moment that I was sitting across Whole Foods and I was
Speaker:thinking about my poor farmers who would drive all the way from upstate New York
Speaker:and some days everything will be finished in like 2 hours. And some
Speaker:days they will just take, have like their truck half full of cabbages
Speaker:and drive back home. And I was like, well, in computer science, so I come
Speaker:from computer science background, AI, machine learning, cybersecurity,
Speaker:and going back to farming. So I was like, in computer science, we do optimization
Speaker:a lot. So we write code that optimizes code that
Speaker:optimizes code that optimizes code. Like the layer just keeps going on, you know,
Speaker:like deeper and deeper. Yeah. And I'm looking at my poor farmers, I
Speaker:should say helpless farmers, they don't have this connection. And I'm like, well, this
Speaker:food production system has been working on, but I don't think it will continue. And
Speaker:looking across, as I mentioned, at Whole Foods, and where Whole Foods has so
Speaker:much analytics, they can source stuff, and then these farmers couldn't. And I was like,
Speaker:could there be a better way? That was the point when I got into indoor
Speaker:farming. And I asked myself, I like to ask myself contrarian
Speaker:questions. So I asked myself the question that, what could be the
Speaker:most— like, can we change the fabric of food production, basically? And the
Speaker:most common answer, like, the idea for me was that the most important thing was
Speaker:that, well, could we grow food indoors? Could we grow food close to where we
Speaker:live? And yeah, basically that was like a black hole for me. I just went
Speaker:into it. Yeah, I know exactly where you were. You're in Tompkins Square
Speaker:Park. I grew up in New York. I grew up just outside in Yonkers. I
Speaker:live in Minneapolis now, but New York City is like my heart and my home,
Speaker:and I've lived in Upper East Side, East Village, Brooklyn.
Speaker:So I'm very familiar with that farmer's market that I think you're speaking about.
Speaker:By the way, so going back to the UAE, sorry, that's where the conversation started.
Speaker:And then I had to move to UAE. And in UAE, I was extremely,
Speaker:extremely inspired. And I, to this day, I am by the founder of UAE, Sheikh
Speaker:Zayed. And his vision was that food security was a very important
Speaker:thing for him. And I don't know, like, even now talking about it, I'm really
Speaker:getting goosebumps because My vision was that, can we make UAE food
Speaker:secure? And I did my math and it made sense. Like,
Speaker:this was about 2018, 2019, that we don't need
Speaker:to import salads and herbs and vegetables from India,
Speaker:from Brazil. It's not sustainable when we can literally import
Speaker:like 1/100th of the mass of fertilizer. We
Speaker:have energy in UAE and we can grow. And I started the first model of
Speaker:Hexafarms. The first production unit was made in my dorm room, actually.
Speaker:And I did my math, the calculation for electricity, added fertilizer and
Speaker:everything. That was the beginning. And now
Speaker:that's when I got into like more, yeah, like how can we commercialize and
Speaker:looking into the market? Because again, like everyone, like just being able to
Speaker:grow food indoors is not an achievement. What is an achievement is
Speaker:like, can you commercialize it? But now we are getting into a totally different
Speaker:point. Like this is the current USP of Hexapharm, which I'm working on. So
Speaker:let's rewind the clock back a little bit. You studied mathematics and
Speaker:computer science at NYU. Has that been a passion since
Speaker:you were little, and how did you end up there? I had actually 2 passions.
Speaker:One was biology, so I wanted to actually become a doctor.
Speaker:And around in like freshman year of high school, I mean, I was always good
Speaker:with computers and I love computers to this day. And yeah, so I
Speaker:went to college, I gave up on medicine. I was like, well, I'm going to
Speaker:study computer science. But it was always my passion, actually. Like when I was
Speaker:14 or 16, I was already doing grafting,
Speaker:mixing 2 different varieties of rose, different fruits together.
Speaker:Where did that passion come from? Like, where did that curiosity come from? I
Speaker:think it was just, I would say it's the hacker
Speaker:mindset in a good sense, not hacker as in cybersecurity way, but
Speaker:I don't know, it just came naturally. White hat. Sorry? White hat. Yeah, white hat.
Speaker:Maybe gray hat, I don't know. I have actually tried to look into myself and
Speaker:understand why do I like plants. And I think the answer is that I
Speaker:see in plants a same version of a computer
Speaker:algorithm. So like plants are really fascinating,
Speaker:beautiful algorithms interacting with physical properties in
Speaker:nature. And that's why I also like the goal of Hexafarms is really that
Speaker:it's an algorithm. Plants are an algorithm. They deal with 13
Speaker:macronutrients. And other factors, temperature, humidity,
Speaker:CO2, maybe even sound vibration, a bunch of things. But at the
Speaker:end of the day, they're vibrations— sorry, they're algorithms. And I'm like, well, we can
Speaker:optimize it. I think the meta answer is that I like plants
Speaker:just because they're like algorithms and it gives me a sense of
Speaker:understanding and appreciation of things around. I see like a
Speaker:divine design in plants and same with computers. Computers are
Speaker:man-made and plants are God-made or something. Computers are
Speaker:man-made, but they're made from silicon too. So they actually come from— if you think
Speaker:about it, silicon chips. What was your family's reaction when you
Speaker:moved from medicine to computers? They were totally neutral.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, I did pursue a career, right? So maybe one day I'll go
Speaker:back to medicine. I don't know. But I think I'm pretty decent with computers at
Speaker:this point. And it's also very lucrative for me to be in computer
Speaker:science. Like from a capitalist perspective. But from my personal
Speaker:perspective, I do derive a lot of pleasure in plant biology.
Speaker:And actually, that's the cool thing for me at Hexafarms. Like for the last 13
Speaker:months, I've been working full-time. There have been really rough times in startup life.
Speaker:That's pretty common. But I can't recall a single day
Speaker:where I was not excited to work on this problem. And I feel
Speaker:really blessed about that because, as I said, it's like a combination of 2 things
Speaker:for me, computers and plants. I mean, sometimes you do get mad at your plants,
Speaker:like you're giving every single thing to them and they're not responding. And
Speaker:sometimes like you're doing some experiments and people come and they're like, oh, these plants
Speaker:look amazing. Or sometimes they're like, oh, these plants don't look good. And like, I
Speaker:don't know, it hurts my ego, but overall it's fun. Do you sing to your
Speaker:plant? Not really, but I do
Speaker:have actually dreams of like plants in a very normal
Speaker:sense, as in like interacting with plants and stuff like that. Yeah, I
Speaker:remember reading when I was, I don't know, this is grade school or high school
Speaker:or something, the experiments they would do where they would play classical
Speaker:music or they played like heavy metal music. It was just really aggressive music. And
Speaker:it seems natural to me, but like, talk about vibrations
Speaker:from the music and just energy in and of itself. It would make sense that
Speaker:if it's soothing and the plants that had the classical music grew better. So I'm
Speaker:wondering, you know, obviously there's applications for that and we can go down another
Speaker:rabbit hole of that as it relates to indoor farms. But that was something that
Speaker:I thought of when you said that. Yeah, I think it was rock that they
Speaker:like and classical as well. And so talk about how
Speaker:you started down this path, because obviously you talked about being in the farmer's market,
Speaker:you talked about what you're doing at Whole Foods, Were you aware of
Speaker:anything that was happening in the world of vertical farming, other companies that
Speaker:existed, or had you been doing some research? I was. Shout
Speaker:out to Square Roots in Brooklyn. So this was January
Speaker:2019, I think, when I was just getting into indoor
Speaker:farming. The first thing a nerd would do is to buy books. So that's what
Speaker:I did and like bought some setup that I could grow plants. And
Speaker:I was living in sort of like a vacuum and I'm like, well, I am
Speaker:onto something. I can grow food indoors. Dixon de Pomier, his book and his
Speaker:essay, extremely influential. And I'm like, you know, like I was also in
Speaker:academia and like someone has to take this mission, you know, outside
Speaker:this world of academia. Little did I know that there were a lot of people
Speaker:working on it. AeroPharmacist was there and as I mentioned, Square Roots.
Speaker:And I was online and I was checking and Square Roots, I think they had
Speaker:a meetup or something or I just emailed them that can I show up and
Speaker:they were welcoming and I went there and I saw stuff. I was taking notes
Speaker:of every single thing where they were probably not doing the best thing and most
Speaker:efficient thing, but they were extremely warm and welcoming in the cold winter. And
Speaker:I visited there. And as I mentioned, going back to UAE
Speaker:before that, also I was in UAE and UAE was like very close to my
Speaker:heart. And I'm like, well, I can really take this to UAE. And I started
Speaker:looking at the African continent. I still to this day, I have a list of
Speaker:all the countries that I wanted to target with Hexafarms. Talk about
Speaker:innocent dreams. And yeah, and I was really thinking
Speaker:that I was looking at the economic complexity. So when you look at the
Speaker:African continent, some of the countries, their economic complexity is
Speaker:super low. So for example, they would have resources, but it is
Speaker:the Western nations or more developed nations that are complex, right? So
Speaker:Germany, for example, could make a chip, but silicon could be coming from
Speaker:somewhere else. I mean, just, I'm just making this up, but same thing was happening.
Speaker:Like, well, like for example, phosphates and stuff could be coming from Lebanon,
Speaker:and Lebanon might not actually have food or even fertilizer, which would be made somewhere
Speaker:else. And I was like, well, the Hexafarms kind of idea, we could just grow
Speaker:it right there. So I checked indoor farms. Maybe this is not
Speaker:a right thing to say on a podcast, but I was not happy with the
Speaker:status quo. Like, there are big giants in the field of indoor farming,
Speaker:and I don't want to name them. They have millions and
Speaker:millions in funding, and their results are not so
Speaker:promising. And as me, as a founder who's starting out, like,
Speaker:sometimes I have to suffer from it because I talk to investors and they'll be
Speaker:like, well, why aren't they doing it? Or vertical indoor farming is not going to
Speaker:work because literally there are 5, 6 companies that have taken, I don't know, combined
Speaker:$2, $3 billion in VC money and they're not able to deliver the result.
Speaker:And I was like, you know, it doesn't matter, I'm going to do it. So
Speaker:yeah, I looked at the status quo, I again checked it, and my first
Speaker:go-to source is actually reading literature and reading publications in the
Speaker:field. There's amazing— there's copious amount of amazing work
Speaker:coming from Japan in indoor farming. And like,
Speaker:for example, like to this day, I don't know if there is a big mega
Speaker:farm that is still able to achieve, let's say, 20 harvests in a year
Speaker:with lettuce. But in Japan, they were achieving it like for quite some time. So
Speaker:yeah, I just read the articles and I'm like, it's better to kind of like
Speaker:to start working on it. And because there is no— like, I can't say there
Speaker:was no single vertical indoor farm that I could look up to and I would
Speaker:say like, they're amazing. Like, I couldn't. So I'm like, well, I have to work
Speaker:on it. But now, having done my research, I think there are some that are
Speaker:good. But I still feel that the biology is not
Speaker:optimized or the plant health knowledge is not optimized
Speaker:and reliance on human talent is still not going to
Speaker:scale. Like the reason why we can't have, going back to again, once again to
Speaker:UAE, is we can't like just put, let's say,
Speaker:10,000-meter-square farm is because we don't have those plant biology experts.
Speaker:And that's where what we are working at Hexafarms comes in is
Speaker:that Well, we can let AI take care of it. And slowly in a
Speaker:year or 2 or 3 with more data coming in, this AI could become the
Speaker:best farmer. Like it would know plant biology better than any human being
Speaker:ever did or ever would. And we can get into this if you're interested later.
Speaker:How did you end up in UAE? I forgot to mention. So I was in
Speaker:this NYU's— I was at NYU Abu Dhabi. So it's like a
Speaker:global campus, but NYU Abu Dhabi and also NYU Shanghai, these are like
Speaker:let's put it, very privileged campuses where students are
Speaker:able to study wherever they want for a few semesters. And that's why my
Speaker:home campus was actually Abu Dhabi. So, moving between countries
Speaker:was a choice that was offered and I took it. Actually, a big part for
Speaker:me to also be in Tel Aviv, Israel, was to see the
Speaker:status quo of indoor farming because I was always like hearing, well,
Speaker:Israel is the best when it comes to food production and farming. And sure it
Speaker:is. But is it like super, super great? Is it
Speaker:like 10x efficient? I doubt that. What
Speaker:I notice as you talk about your journey into discovering
Speaker:the world of indoor farming is sort of this mentality
Speaker:of like, it's good, but it can be better. And also, I get
Speaker:the sense that you're the type of person that is always looking to
Speaker:optimize something where you feel like you can add value, and also
Speaker:that you're confident in, you know, seeing and respecting what other people have done,
Speaker:but also, you know, understanding that, you know, there is ways
Speaker:to improve what already exists and not being satisfied with what's
Speaker:there already, because I think maybe understanding, and maybe that's your
Speaker:systems background, or understanding that there's a possibility that you can do things
Speaker:better. Absolutely. I mean, on our website, we say 40% cost
Speaker:reduction, and I mean it. Like, we have been running a farm, we have been
Speaker:doing experiments, and I'm not like— again, as I said, initially I was very
Speaker:innocent, you know, I didn't know what other people were up to and there's a
Speaker:lot of amazing work a lot of other people have done. But when I started
Speaker:doing our work, we set up a lab and we really are trying to be
Speaker:as realistic as possible, measuring every single thing like how many minutes
Speaker:am I spending on my seedlings, how many minutes am I spending on
Speaker:harvesting, how many times I had to go down in the lab and check the
Speaker:stuff. And when I look at the summary of top indoor
Speaker:farms and I compare it to ours, like that optimization level is
Speaker:there. So I do see that there is going to be a limit, but I'm
Speaker:still very, very optimistic that a crop like lettuce,
Speaker:not that expensive baby spinach salad or something, but like
Speaker:normal salad, like normal spinach, normal lettuce could be
Speaker:grown in indoor farms profitably within the, like the hearts of
Speaker:metropolitans, very super expensive. I do feel that optimization can go up.
Speaker:like to that level. I don't think indoor farming is fully optimized.
Speaker:It's like there's still room for 20 to 40%. So talk to me
Speaker:about the experience you had with Techstars.
Speaker:Techstars. I think it's fantastic, but I
Speaker:don't think fantastic is fair. Just fantastic won't do the job. So
Speaker:Techstars. So we started like, so as I said, the idea was with me
Speaker:for quite some time. And then I was in Germany, I was doing my master's
Speaker:in cybersecurity. I actually like with 2 other friends, we bootstrapped another
Speaker:startup. My goal was that it will make so much money that I'll sell my
Speaker:stock and put it all in indoor farming. Wasn't that successful, it was
Speaker:okay-ish. And this is like around 2019. And after that
Speaker:I became a machine learning researcher. And in the fall of
Speaker:2019, I joined a master's program in
Speaker:cybersecurity where again, it was all about building a startup in cybersecurity in
Speaker:Germany. But for some reason I was obsessed with food security. So I would
Speaker:talk to friends and we were working at like edge of machine learning and AI,
Speaker:like crazy stuff. Because the institute where I studied is a little-known
Speaker:place called CISPA in Germany, and apparently it's the number one
Speaker:cybersecurity institute in the world. When you look at cybersecurity, like, it's better than
Speaker:MIT or Cornell or CMU. So yeah, and I was there and I
Speaker:used to talk about like food security and like how AI could be used. And
Speaker:I think one or two good friends of mine, they were like, either shut up
Speaker:or just do this stuff. And really that was it. And I'm like, well,
Speaker:I need money. And they're like, in Germany you can apply for grants. And I
Speaker:applied for a grant. This was last year. We got the grant, we started
Speaker:building stuff 13 months in, and that's how the startup has
Speaker:been. And then we were working on it, saw promising
Speaker:results, and then somehow Techstars, someone from Techstars found us.
Speaker:And then that's where like it all began. And Techstars is like really brutal in
Speaker:the sense of like application process. So there were like
Speaker:7,500 startups and out of those, 13 were
Speaker:selected. And we are kind of like the odd ones, right? Because we're like, Of
Speaker:course, I can always portray the image of like we're deep tech, AI,
Speaker:machine learning. But on the other hand, we're like farmers. There are like other startups
Speaker:in crypto and machine language generation and stuff like that.
Speaker:We joined, and I think in the last 2 months at Techstars,
Speaker:we have improved way more than we could have
Speaker:without Techstars in a year or 2. So I could give like concrete examples.
Speaker:Yeah, please do. Yeah. So we were initially— Techstars has this program called Mentor
Speaker:Madness, and you talked about 40 mentors and they are
Speaker:from different fields. They're investors, some of them are founders, some of them are
Speaker:just scientists, let's say. And you talk to them and you have like 20 minutes
Speaker:with them and you just move on to the next one. And like you do
Speaker:this for 5 days and at the end of the day, like they do give
Speaker:you feedback and there's just like general impression from their side how
Speaker:good you are or how bad you are and what you should fix. And I
Speaker:was hearing this constant thing that, hey, you can't make a unicorn case with Hexafarms.
Speaker:And their reasoning was that you're building for vertical indoor farms and
Speaker:that market is €8 billion. And you are just, let's
Speaker:say if you improve like a fraction of it, 10%, that's about like
Speaker:€800 million. But wait, you can't get all the market, so you'll get maybe
Speaker:10% of it, right? So you're fixing like 10% of €800 million and then you're
Speaker:going to take your cut of 10% of that. Like, it's not a unicorn case.
Speaker:And in my head I'm like, how is that not a unicorn case? Because
Speaker:what we are fundamentally doing is We are coming to
Speaker:the biggest industry of humankind, which is food production. And
Speaker:it's not just like 8 billion, it's going to be more. When the AI is
Speaker:smart enough, we can take it out to greenhouses, we can take it out to
Speaker:normal land-based agriculture. And just giving an example of Techstars
Speaker:and how it was productive was then we're like, well, then do it from the
Speaker:onset. Don't tell us this story that you're fixing for vertical indoor
Speaker:farms. Go do market validation, go talk to customers. And
Speaker:funny enough, our first customer is actually a greenhouse. It's a stealth
Speaker:project, I can't mention it, but they're like, one of the best in Germany and
Speaker:also working with some indoor farms. But it's a greenhouse and
Speaker:they're like, we actually see clearly the benefit of an AI and
Speaker:computer vision system here, especially if it's a software which tells us what to do
Speaker:and at what point. If it tells us when our plants are ready, when we
Speaker:should move, if it can somehow using the image tell the health of the plant,
Speaker:I think it's really helpful for us. And finally coming to the USP and
Speaker:like Techstars, for example, if it was not for Techstars, we wouldn't have come to
Speaker:this one-liner. And that one-liner is that We help controlled
Speaker:environment agriculture reduce their cost by up to 40%. But
Speaker:controlled environment agriculture is not just vertical indoor farming, it's also
Speaker:greenhouse, it's also hydroponic system, which is like
Speaker:single layer and stuff like that. So I think that was one of the benefits
Speaker:of Techstars because at the end of the day, like we're a startup and we
Speaker:would need more and more money and you have to follow
Speaker:certain rules. And I think we were not ready in that sense and Techstars really
Speaker:helped us there. And so are you currently in the program or have you
Speaker:since graduated? Yeah, in the program. And yeah,
Speaker:so we were in the program and then they were like, well, go validate your
Speaker:market, go talk to customers. And we did. And we have actually pretty excellent
Speaker:customers lined up for using our product, testing our AI.
Speaker:How big is the team now? We actually only 3 people. Yeah.
Speaker:What's been the biggest growth that you've seen if you look
Speaker:at yourself as first-time CEO, is that
Speaker:accurate? Yeah. Yeah. So building a company,
Speaker:taking this passion, taking all your experience. Now with
Speaker:everything, obviously having Techstars as mentors is really invaluable because, you know,
Speaker:what you've been able to learn and get help on in
Speaker:such a concentrated period of time, you know, people spend years, maybe
Speaker:even decades, you know, getting that experience, trying things, failing. And I think
Speaker:what's been helpful for you is having that rapid, you know,
Speaker:experience and sort of downloads from all those fantastic mentors
Speaker:that I'm sure you had access to. And so they're quickly making you realize, you
Speaker:know, how you create a business out of this that's sustainable. And
Speaker:so I'm just curious for you personally, like, where are you seeing the growth?
Speaker:It's probably been happening faster than normal, but like as a CEO and as
Speaker:someone who's starting a company for the first time. I think one great learning
Speaker:has been for me, I'm going to push back on that a bit where mentors
Speaker:come in. I think it's taking the right advice, right?
Speaker:So like there are some people who have said grow cannabis and because there's a
Speaker:lot of money and it's the same process. And I'm like, sure, it's the same
Speaker:software. But like the vision here is not just about cannabis, it's about
Speaker:all kinds of plant biology. And so that advice was like, well, if you grow
Speaker:cannabis, you can raise VC money pretty quick. But there I'm like,
Speaker:maybe, but maybe not. It's not a fact, it's just your opinion. So I think
Speaker:one big lesson I learned was that I have to be original and I
Speaker:really work on it, which is kind of like a bit contradictory to what I
Speaker:said, right? Listening to other people. But I think it's just like
Speaker:balancing a bunch of things. I mean, it sounds very generic answer.
Speaker:Yeah. One great thing that has happened to me is really talking to customers. It's
Speaker:not living in my own bubble or in a vacuum. And at this point
Speaker:I am talking to customers. As I said, it's like I had a call with
Speaker:someone in growing ornamental plants. So
Speaker:it's totally different space, like flowers, for example, it's a totally different space or
Speaker:greenhouses. For quite some time I was not open because I'm like, well, this AI
Speaker:is going to break if it goes outside of controlled vertical indoor
Speaker:farms, right? In vertical indoor farms right now, for example, at Hexafarms, we
Speaker:look at what is called the phenomics, like different factors that affect plant growth.
Speaker:We look at CO2, temperature, humidity, eCPH,
Speaker:temperature in the air, in the water. oxygen diffusion. We
Speaker:can— at one point we were even looking at different salt levels. In normal farms,
Speaker:greenhouses, I can't do it. But I think talking to customers, I
Speaker:realized that, well, not everyone has those things and it would
Speaker:take you years. Like if I wait for the market to build the whole work
Speaker:indoor farming infrastructure, like it's going to be too late. So I think one big
Speaker:thing that has happened to me is I would call myself a nerd, but I'm
Speaker:really trying to go out and talk to people and solve actual problems. That has
Speaker:been tremendously helpful for me. And also the other thing was communication.
Speaker:Maybe I'm still not good at communication because I speak in a very
Speaker:recursive fashion, like I go down and down. But I would say 2 things
Speaker:that, yeah, it's like talking to customers, then probably conversation and
Speaker:also realizing that they're people. Not everyone is
Speaker:moved by my vision to make vertical indoor farming or food
Speaker:production super efficient. There are people who like it, But they want to
Speaker:10x their money. There are people who absolutely love only plant biology.
Speaker:So kind of like identifying that early on has also been helpful.
Speaker:So who would you say is an ideal partner for Hexafarms?
Speaker:Vertical indoor farms, like people growing on like a regular basis,
Speaker:a lot of produce, and they're looking to cut down their
Speaker:cost. They're the best ones because ideal ones are vertical
Speaker:indoor farms, because that's where we see the magic. So we reduce the
Speaker:cost in basically 3 ways. One is that
Speaker:plants are getting what they need. So plants like our system, so
Speaker:basically Hexapharm packages a bunch of sensors and these are all
Speaker:industry-grade sensors that are open source in the sense that we can
Speaker:ask for the values from these sensors and connect to a network. So we put
Speaker:these sensors in your farm and also actuators, which would be, let's say, a
Speaker:controller, like a relay. So your light setting, for example, We could tweak that with
Speaker:our sensors, which we don't actually manufacture, we just put them. And then
Speaker:we stream all of that data to the cloud where we do the processing, and
Speaker:then we control the farm. So it's like a 2-way loop. And the efficiency that
Speaker:comes into play is that plants are getting in real time what they need. So
Speaker:to give you an example, if our camera detects that plant on layer
Speaker:4 is stressed, then we just turn the light off. The
Speaker:conventional wisdom is to keep the light on because you'll get, I don't know,
Speaker:massive production, which is not true. And when we turn the light off, we save
Speaker:the electricity there. And then we also like electricity
Speaker:is reduced, but the plant is happy. So the harvest cycle is going to be
Speaker:short or like the production could be more from the same amount of resource.
Speaker:So one would be like, it's like biological optimization. The second big
Speaker:factor is operations. You don't have to keep checking on things. And third one is
Speaker:plant biology expertise, which is better than any human being. And that
Speaker:can be run anywhere on the planet, like going back to UAE. in the
Speaker:desert, like you don't have to hire someone, an AI can take care of it.
Speaker:This whole plant biology expertise right now, they're like just few experts. This
Speaker:again is not a good thing to say on a podcast, but a lot of
Speaker:these quote unquote experts are really coming from the horticulture segment, right?
Speaker:And they're not necessarily extremely aware of how food production happens at vertical
Speaker:indoor farming. So yeah, that's like how we drive value
Speaker:in our whole product. Coming back, this sense of
Speaker:like disrupting the norms, is that something that's a trait in you? Is that something
Speaker:you've always Like been doing, like doing things a different way?
Speaker:Maybe. I'm actually, in terms of philosophy, like in politics,
Speaker:I'm more conservative, but I do question the norms. I mean,
Speaker:come on, like take traditional farming, like tilling the ground. It's a conventional
Speaker:wisdom, but it's not necessarily true. Like if you go to India, literally
Speaker:at the end of the season, the whole swath of land is just going to
Speaker:be tilled and they think it gives like air and
Speaker:airflow in the soil. But it's not true. Like, you can also do
Speaker:farming in permaculture way without tilling the ground. So I think a lot of wisdom
Speaker:around us is just like someone else like us thought that before
Speaker:and they thought it was a good way. But yeah, that won't stop me from
Speaker:questioning it. I mean, I don't want to question for the sake of questioning it,
Speaker:but places where I do know some bits about it, I would like to question
Speaker:it. And it's good. Like, yeah, because a healthy dose of it is good.
Speaker:Yeah, healthy dose of skepticism, like they say, because You know, obviously the people who
Speaker:have made differences in this world were the ones who went against the
Speaker:grain or what people typically thought was possible. And, you know,
Speaker:you just need that first person. Here in the States, they've, they've called it the
Speaker:Bannister Breakthrough because Roger Bannister was the— if you know the story, you
Speaker:know, no one thought you could break the 4-minute mile and he broke it. And
Speaker:then all of a sudden everyone's breaking 4-minute miles. And then you don't know
Speaker:what's possible until someone leads the way and just pushes, you
Speaker:know, the limits of what people, you know, traditionally think. you can do.
Speaker:I mean, our whole field, I mean, vertical indoor farming is really so
Speaker:unconventional. And I mean, we are in the same spirit, and
Speaker:I think we should question more. Yeah, it sounds like you're going to be doing
Speaker:that as well. So how do you think about growing your
Speaker:team? Like, do you have inspiration for folks that have done that that you can
Speaker:talk to, or how do you think about that personally? Because I imagine
Speaker:as you grow Hexaphorms, you're going to have to think about What are the
Speaker:right hires at the right time? Yeah. So our
Speaker:USPs, like more unique selling point, is that the AI performance,
Speaker:right? So right now we are 3 people. One of us taking care
Speaker:of operations and sales. I would be taking care of—
Speaker:I do like AI machine learning and Heejae, my co-founder, he's
Speaker:also doing AI machine learning, more computer vision, robotics side.
Speaker:And I think we would— the next hires would be people
Speaker:like AI and machine learning again, because I and my third
Speaker:co-founder Felix, I also like to be involved in talking to
Speaker:customers. So it's not like just one person doing it because I think it's very
Speaker:important for us as co-founders to know it. And also like quote unquote
Speaker:CEO of a 3-person company, I should still be talking to
Speaker:customers and I do that. So I think the next hire would be in the
Speaker:field of AI machine learning and/or
Speaker:development, again, programming. We could definitely benefit from some
Speaker:marketing because our marketing is crap. It's like
Speaker:if you go to HexaFarms or like anything, you don't find that
Speaker:crazy or cool stuff. When I see online different
Speaker:companies that I kind of know inside out and their presentation is super solid.
Speaker:So I would say AI, machine learning, marketing. And
Speaker:I think if we make a good product, sales would work by itself. That's the
Speaker:hope. Word of mouth. Yeah. And if you drive value, I mean,
Speaker:people just like it. And our space is so homogeneous. I realized it also
Speaker:works in indoor farming and in general agriculture. It's so homogeneous. If
Speaker:you drive value for someone, word of mouth is going to work in our favor.
Speaker:And this podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker:I'm so happy and grateful to be here. So David,
Speaker:when you think about who this makes sense for.
Speaker:Was there ever any thought of starting your own farm, or do you realize that
Speaker:the power in what you're providing is enhancing
Speaker:what existing farms are doing? We were at one
Speaker:point— our first proposal actually for that grant that I mentioned that we
Speaker:got from the German government, which, which helped us to build the whole stuff, was
Speaker:that we're going to grow our own stuff and we're going to sell it. We
Speaker:were wrong. Selling is difficult. And even packaging,
Speaker:marketing. And while working on it, it's like
Speaker:we realized it was difficult. So like, okay, let's work on the— what is our
Speaker:core thing? And that was like AI part and intelligence part and
Speaker:control and monitoring. And then I started talking to people and I realized
Speaker:actually even monitoring is not a pressing problem, right? So there are lots of
Speaker:companies that are providing solutions for monitoring, even automation. But
Speaker:one thing that I heard which was universally true even from
Speaker:quote unquote competitors or enemies. I don't think anyone is an enemy, but
Speaker:actually, no, sometimes I do talk to companies I don't want to name. And the
Speaker:amount of ego is just unbearable. It's like, I know them,
Speaker:their company from like some other side, and then someone working on
Speaker:something else and the way they would flex about their technology. And I'm like, gosh,
Speaker:like, this is too much. But anyhow, where was I?
Speaker:No, you were just thinking about, you know, That you were originally going to start
Speaker:your own farm and then you realized by having these conversations. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So now I'm hearing from people that it's actually that
Speaker:computer vision AI part, the intelligence part that is going to be the most
Speaker:important thing and the game changer. And that's what we are focusing on now because
Speaker:again, also coming to the reality of the startup, I would love to run a
Speaker:farm. I would love to put experiments. I'm also an amateur mycologist,
Speaker:like just cloning mushrooms, growing mushrooms. It's also an obsession of
Speaker:mine. It's like you could give me any mushroom, most likely I can clone it.
Speaker:And I do that. I mean, if I had to do as a hobby, of
Speaker:course I would have like a farm unit. We do actually have 2
Speaker:farms. We have actually one farm that we deployed and is working like 700
Speaker:kilometers away from here. And I can control every single thing from here in Berlin.
Speaker:It's fully remote. But I don't think moving forward we are going to get
Speaker:into the hardware space or growing itself. I think there are tons of
Speaker:companies that are doing a pretty good job. Also, there are some companies that are
Speaker:not super nice to talk to, but there are also some big names that you
Speaker:talk to. They're super nice and super welcoming. And I think our potential
Speaker:would be mostly there. So they're like right now, if to name some big
Speaker:indoor farms like Plenty, Bowery, Infarm in Europe, and AeroFarms,
Speaker:is they do have a biology team working on it. But I
Speaker:think that is not democratic enough. Like if you were to start an indoor farm,
Speaker:you can't get that efficiency that they might have, which I'm not going to question
Speaker:here on the podcast. But I think if Hexafarms could
Speaker:have a team of X number of people working solely
Speaker:on developing an AI, which is plant brain, and everyone can access to it,
Speaker:I think that will be excellent and game changer. The democratic aspect, like anyone
Speaker:could really subscribe to a service. Our pricing would be based on the amount of
Speaker:efficiency we drive for you, right? So if we let you save €100,000,
Speaker:$100,000 a year and be like, hey, our subscription would be
Speaker:$10K, I mean, you would gladly pay because you're getting $90K extra from the same
Speaker:operations. So yeah, I think that is also important for us. So
Speaker:that's why focusing purely on AI and software. Where are you seeing the most
Speaker:opportunities for growth? Are you bootstrapped? Are you looking for funding?
Speaker:What's top of mind for you right now? So we are pretty
Speaker:secure financially for another year, but I think now last
Speaker:2 months have been crazy good in terms of like traction.
Speaker:And actually we are considering fundraising sooner than we had
Speaker:planned. Like right now, if I could fundraise and I can really put
Speaker:money to good use and scaling things up. One other thing is
Speaker:that I think in our field, now this is getting
Speaker:capitalistic, is that I think winner takes it all kind of thing,
Speaker:right? So if our AI is better, it is very unlikely that someone else
Speaker:can beat and vice versa. So if someone else does it, they could actually
Speaker:kind of do a pretty good job and take over. So that's why I'm also
Speaker:like, maybe actually we could fundraise sooner and just speed things up a bit.
Speaker:And also just in terms of utility that we drive for the planet,
Speaker:by having an AI trained and working sooner than later, I think it's
Speaker:better. Where are we in terms of AI, specifically with
Speaker:the applications that you're using it for in vertical farming? Are we
Speaker:just literally at the starting line? Are we, in terms of
Speaker:possibilities, I'm curious from your perspective what that looks like.
Speaker:Initially, I used to shy from using the word AI because it's such a buzzword,
Speaker:and machine learning. So right now for us, let's take
Speaker:one cultivar lettuce, Lactuca sativa. Our AI can,
Speaker:using normal camera, measure the 3D growth. We can
Speaker:get good indicators about the stress level in the plant,
Speaker:nutrient deficiency of calcium, potassium. These are coming from
Speaker:normal cameras because that's kind of like our technique. Tesla, I think, is
Speaker:also having similar approach where they don't rely on expensive sensors or
Speaker:multiple sensors, but they rather kind of train
Speaker:simpler sensors. to, let's say, like using a model where
Speaker:you could predict the 3D shape of a human being just from a 2D image,
Speaker:right? So that could be one application for like autonomous cars. Not
Speaker:exactly like this, but it works in a similar fashion. So our AI is,
Speaker:again, the computer vision can do those things. And then it can also take
Speaker:into account the factors I mentioned: CO2, temperature,
Speaker:humidity, EC, pH, more factors you can keep adding.
Speaker:It can easily correlate those things. It can predict harvest time, by the
Speaker:way, using normal cameras. And I think the pipeline is fully set. It's
Speaker:just like now adding more cultivars. And our
Speaker:farm, by the way, so the one that is the first one, it was actually
Speaker:our first customer and it's running and the customer doesn't have to touch it. Like
Speaker:it's not just AI, it's also like monitoring and control. So everything
Speaker:is kind of working and coming back to reality where AI alone
Speaker:is not going to do harvesting, right? So we need some other things. And our
Speaker:system is also like, let's say when things are growing and there's a
Speaker:need that the pH level in the nutrient solution has to
Speaker:be changed and automatically triggers. And we have solved all those
Speaker:problems. So it triggers and it changes. But for some reason, let's say it does
Speaker:not change and it does not change for 3 hours. That's bad. But
Speaker:it doesn't just remain like that. We get a notification because we have set up
Speaker:like another monitoring software for that, which just sends a notification, hey, this is not
Speaker:changing and just intervene. And we would just look into it. So yeah, I
Speaker:think it's not just the beginning. It's like pretty decent. And now we're
Speaker:looking at what is called a normalized difference vegetative
Speaker:index. I actually wrote it down. Can you explain what that means? Yeah.
Speaker:So it's NDVI and this is an approach that is used with
Speaker:satellite imagery. So when you look at fields and you want to
Speaker:understand where is vegetation happening and you can see
Speaker:basically it's like normal image. And then you
Speaker:combine it with near-infrared and based on the
Speaker:kind of like manipulate those values and you figure out the vegetative
Speaker:index about what is actually like growing
Speaker:plants and what is not. And the same approach can be also applied in
Speaker:indoor farming. So it could be a very good indicator to give you like a
Speaker:much simpler example is that let's say we have 2 cameras and with one we
Speaker:are measuring the infrared, which is heat map of the plants. And the
Speaker:other one is taking RGB image, which is a normal image as we see.
Speaker:And then looking at the correlation between the two, we can infer a lot of
Speaker:things. Like we can infer plant disease, stress level,
Speaker:photosynthetic activity. I mean, there's publication on that as well. And
Speaker:right now these things are done either in labs and you need equipment
Speaker:worth like $6K to $20K. And our take of Hexapharm's take is
Speaker:that we don't need to focus on sensors because we're getting information
Speaker:anyways. So why not add the complexity in software? Because then we can
Speaker:distribute it super fast. And that's the bet we're making. And so far,
Speaker:we have seen promising results. Where are you seeing
Speaker:the most challenges for yourself as a company? I think
Speaker:the vertical indoor farming space, at least in Europe,
Speaker:is— I have noticed that there is a sense of
Speaker:pessimism. I don't want to name some big companies here, but they have not been
Speaker:able to drive the results. And have been operational for 9 years or so.
Speaker:Some are shutting down. I mean, I think Five Seasons, I don't know if it's
Speaker:European or American, Five Seasons just declared bankruptcy last week.
Speaker:And I think this is a big challenge is like, how can you
Speaker:convince investors? Because at the end of the day, we need money. And how
Speaker:can we convince people to put in their money that they will see like 10x
Speaker:value? I mean, but this is an external factor. This really does not stop me
Speaker:because, and that's why I'm like even doubling down on taking the challenge of
Speaker:optimization. Like if I can prove to a supermarket And this experiment we
Speaker:did, and responses were pretty good, is that, hey, if I can
Speaker:promise you that lettuce, one head of lettuce that you're getting for
Speaker:$0.35 from a faraway field, what if we delivered the
Speaker:same lettuce to you? Or even better, you can put a farm,
Speaker:super simple farm, but hyper-intensive in terms of productivity in your
Speaker:storage room, and you can have a secure supply of high-quality lettuce
Speaker:roughly at the same price. And then they're like, okay, makes sense. Like right now,
Speaker:lettuce, if you buy, first of all, no one is stupid enough to grow lettuce
Speaker:in Europe in vertical indoor farms. We know why, because it's not
Speaker:efficient. It's like unit economics is not making sense, so no one is doing it.
Speaker:But my goal is that if we can prove that, then even from
Speaker:economic perspective, it should make sense. And that's the
Speaker:challenge I would like us to solve. Yeah. So in general, yeah, the fear is
Speaker:from the market, but it's also not a big fear. I'm not scared at
Speaker:all. I can tell. I love the energy and the enthusiasm that you're bringing
Speaker:into this. And the hope that you have for where this is
Speaker:going. I think we all see it. I think we all see the potential and
Speaker:we all see this idea that what we've done up
Speaker:until now has gotten us to this point. But that
Speaker:doesn't mean that there can't be new fresh blood, fresh ideas, fresh thinking
Speaker:to get us to maybe like move exponentially to where we need to be if
Speaker:we're really going to solve this challenge of, you know, access to food, food
Speaker:scarcity, you know, supply chain issues, food deserts, all the
Speaker:things that, you know, we want to see. vertical farming tackle?
Speaker:What's a tough question you've been asking yourself recently? There are lots of
Speaker:them. Most of them are actually computer science questions.
Speaker:I have more tough questions in, like, as I said, in computer science kind
Speaker:of. It's AI, for example. I think that with
Speaker:AI we are kind of stagnating, which is a bit
Speaker:controversial opinion to have when we were seeing GPT-3 and all. I think
Speaker:we could be doing much better. We could be doing— by much better, I mean,
Speaker:I think AI is still devoid of reasoning. So I think
Speaker:textual manipulation, taking a text and generating a summary, if actually, if you
Speaker:go back in our field, you would find actually old papers.
Speaker:Text generation was super simple even like 50 years ago. Summary was a bit
Speaker:difficult. There was a paradigm shift, I think, in the '90s, late '90s,
Speaker:where deep learning came into play. And I think we're building just on top of
Speaker:that. I think we could do much better there. So my tough question that
Speaker:I have is that, can we go beyond AI? Can we go
Speaker:beyond the conventional model of AI? I think in my opinion, like for last
Speaker:2 decades, it has not changed much. Like deep learning is school of thought, it's
Speaker:just deep learning. I mean, of course, like we see tremendous results. So that is
Speaker:one tough question. Like what are the limits of AI? I think it's a tough
Speaker:question because we don't even have the language developed, right? To ask that question. Like
Speaker:what does it even mean to ask that question? Coming back to vertical indoor
Speaker:farming, what are my tough questions is
Speaker:like, who will be the eventual growers? Is it going to be the mega farms
Speaker:or are we going to see a new democratic world where
Speaker:people like you, people like me would actually have
Speaker:an Uber version of farming? Like we will put some
Speaker:kit in our garages and connect it to supermarkets and just
Speaker:grow food. And the unit economics in that case would be, hey, I'm putting in
Speaker:like $500 worth of electricity and $50 worth of
Speaker:fertilizer. At the end of the day, I'm like growing, let's say,
Speaker:$2,000 worth of like produce. And the
Speaker:supermarket is connected to the same hub and is able to take it. So it's
Speaker:not a tough question, but it's just like thought experiment that I do with myself.
Speaker:On optimistic days, I have really beautiful pictures. On other days, I have really
Speaker:dystopic pictures. No, I mean, I think it's so exciting because there
Speaker:is room here for everyone. And I think So far, the
Speaker:conversations what I've had is that everyone knows, you know, we may
Speaker:see companies that are doing very similar things in this space, but it really is
Speaker:an all hands on deck moment. It's like we need everyone to be addressing this
Speaker:problem because, you know, we're trying to feed whatever the number is, 9 billion
Speaker:people on this planet. Like, I think there's still a lot of opportunities here.
Speaker:There's still a lot of need, and there's still from everything from the plants
Speaker:and the herbs I'm going to be growing in my living room to the container
Speaker:farm next to the supermarket, to the restaurant chain that's, you know,
Speaker:building several container farms, to the AeroFarms, to the Plenties of the world. I think
Speaker:there's definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach, and I think people are going to find out
Speaker:what approach fits them. You're talking about all the different crops. Mushrooms are
Speaker:really big now. Strawberries are making a dent, and there's expansion happening in
Speaker:terms of what we can grow and what's possible. And then the
Speaker:regions, right, like the UAE, you know, like where there's pressing needs for this
Speaker:sort of thing. So it's really exciting. And then I think, you know, I had
Speaker:my eyes opened even more when I was in Dubai in terms of seeing the
Speaker:potential and how— what a need this was, not only for growing food
Speaker:for people but also growing food for livestock. I mean, camels in
Speaker:UAE— I mean, I think one of the biggest camel farmers in the UAE was
Speaker:expressing the need to like, I need to like figure this out because I need
Speaker:to keep, you know, my livestock fed. And so just there's so many challenges that
Speaker:if you don't look at this from a global perspective You just think it's like,
Speaker:oh, I just have to like, you know, feed, you know, or create enough
Speaker:crops for people in my neighborhood or something like that. And that's the only challenge.
Speaker:But there's something bigger that's happening here. And I think the more and more I
Speaker:have conversations with people from around the world tackling this problem from different angles,
Speaker:as you are, and especially coming into it with a fresh perspective, I think
Speaker:really that's really what's exciting me about the potential.
Speaker:I agree. It's different solutions from different angles.
Speaker:And I think, yeah, the combination is going to work. But I've taken my side
Speaker:and my side is that putting AI to work, making things accessible to people
Speaker:is very important. Not locking in people with hardware or something.
Speaker:And yeah, just kind of like agriculture, I don't know, 4.0,
Speaker:6.0. I don't want to use a tag, but like just a new paradigm. I
Speaker:mean, sure. Yeah. Where did the name come from? Hexafarms.
Speaker:That's basically Hexafarms. The name comes from hexagon, which
Speaker:is mathematically a super beautiful structure. So if you look
Speaker:at honeybees and honeycombs, the structure is hexagon because
Speaker:hexagon— I mean, it has a bunch of other properties. One of them
Speaker:is that if you have to 3D pack
Speaker:stuff, so let's say we take cubes and we just put cubes on top of
Speaker:cubes, cubes on top of cubes, and I give you some specific volume, you can
Speaker:fit it up, right? You can fill it up with cubes and there won't be
Speaker:any space left. And then the— we can do the same with pyramids, like a
Speaker:triangular shape. And then the question is, what is maximum number
Speaker:of sites that we can have that can fully fit
Speaker:into like a volume? And turns out it's a hexagon. So if we have like
Speaker:a hexagon, like 3D shape with hexagon as all faces, like we can 3D
Speaker:pack them most efficiently. If you go one more edge, like
Speaker:septagon, it won't work. So pentagon would work, but
Speaker:hexagon works as well. After that, it does not work. Honeybees, yeah, make
Speaker:for that exact reason. it gives the most efficient structure to use
Speaker:the least amount of wax to get the same structure. So Hexa kind of comes
Speaker:from efficiency. But don't be surprised if we actually rename
Speaker:ourselves in the future because a lot of people confuse us as
Speaker:like, let's say, Aerofarms. Like, we're not in the
Speaker:farming space, we're not in the hardware space, we're more as the
Speaker:intelligence part. So yeah, maybe the parent company will remain Hexafarms.
Speaker:But yeah, so that's where the name comes from. It's very apropos given
Speaker:the solutions you're solving for. So David, this was a really fun conversation.
Speaker:I'm glad we got connected. I'm really excited to see the innovation that's happening in
Speaker:the space and especially like, you know, this fresh perspectives coming in
Speaker:because I think, you know, to your point, you know, the way we've been doing
Speaker:things has been working to some extent, but that doesn't mean there's not
Speaker:opportunity for innovation consistently happening, especially at the rate at
Speaker:which technologies are improving like AI, like
Speaker:some sensors. So I think what you're doing is really valuable. It's a bit
Speaker:disruptive, I think, if I have to say, and then I think that's a good
Speaker:thing. And so I'm going to be excited to be watching your journey.
Speaker:hexafarms.com for people who want to learn more. Any other place you want to send
Speaker:people to connect with you? LinkedIn, we have our page,
Speaker:[email protected]. As I said, we're really terrible at marketing,
Speaker:and our social media presence is also not that awesome. But yeah, thank you so
Speaker:much for having me here, and my apologies, like, The way I speak is just
Speaker:like, you know, the thought stream is very complex, like the roots of a
Speaker:lettuce plant. That's a perfect way to wrap this up. Thank you for sharing, and
Speaker:no need to ever apologize for being who you are. And I think it's really
Speaker:important to just wear your heart on your sleeve sometimes. So David, one
Speaker:opportunity I like to give my guests is to speak to
Speaker:this audience, and it's your peers in the space, people in the vertical farming space,
Speaker:people who are interested in vertical farming. So do you have a message for the
Speaker:vertical farming industry? Yes, I do. Well, only one
Speaker:message is that let's be humble. Let's work together. And by
Speaker:being humble, it also implies that we should be open to different solutions.
Speaker:I believe that we can use new tools. We don't have to be scared. We
Speaker:have to be humble enough to accept that there could be AI solution combined with
Speaker:some sensors that can surpass human intelligence, but it's not going to take
Speaker:over, right? So it's going to help us. It's going to be an assistive technology
Speaker:for us to reach higher efficiency. So yeah, I would say, Let's be
Speaker:humble. That's very well put. Thank you. Thanks again to David for that
Speaker:enlightening and entertaining conversation. I really appreciate
Speaker:him coming on the show, and I'm glad we got to tell his very, very
Speaker:exciting story. It's gonna be very fun to watch David's progress. Full show notes
Speaker:including everything we discussed, resources mentioned, timestamps
Speaker:at verticalfarmingpodcast.com. Once again, thanks to our season 6
Speaker:title sponsor Cultivated. If you're looking into a vertical farm and don't know where to
Speaker:start or which technology would suit your needs, Reach out to them today. Best of
Speaker:all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners.
Speaker:Learn more at cultivatd.com, and that's spelled
Speaker:C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com. Just leave out that last E.
Speaker:Podcast production and marketing provided by Fullcast. Learn more at
Speaker:fullcast.co. As a reminder, if you are enjoying the
Speaker:show, if you've enjoyed past shows, if you're going to enjoy a future show, leave
Speaker:us a rating and review at ratethispodcast.com/vfb.
Speaker:And we'll be sure, I promise, to read that out on a future episode. The
Speaker:hits just keep on coming, as they say. Tune in next episode. We've got a
Speaker:great conversation with Dr. Christian Thoma of Calera.
Speaker:That's a conversation I've been waiting to have for a while now.
Speaker:As always, here's to your health. Thanks for listening. To read the full show
Speaker:notes for this episode, which includes any links mentioned in the
Speaker:episode, as well as a full show transcription, visit
Speaker:verticalfarmingpodcast.com. There, You can sign up
Speaker:for our email list to be notified when new episodes are published.
Speaker:$680 million poured into precision ag last year.
Speaker:Autonomous weeding robots dominated, and John Deere made 2 acquisitions in
Speaker:3 months. A food company, not an equipment maker, bought a
Speaker:robotics startup to protect its own supply chain. The deals are
Speaker:accelerating, the money is moving, and the winners are already separating from the
Speaker:pack. If you're investing, building, or buying in this space,
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.
