Daphni and Kima Ventures in €4m round for Agricool

Daphni provided more than half of the round and was joined by co-investor Kima Ventures, as well as various business angels.

With this new financial support, the two founders Guillaume Fourdinier and Gonzague Gru plan to make their business model – growing fruit and vegetables inside repurposed shipping containers – viable and marketable.

The co-founders explained in a blogpost on the website Medium: "We were disgusted with the strawberries we could buy in the city. So Gonzague and I (both sons of farmers) decided to build a farming system in our apartment. A few weeks later (and really, against all of our expectations) we had two strawberries waiting for us. And even more surprisingly, they tasted delicious and sweet!

"We will feed the planet with fruits and vegetables that are tasty, grown without pesticides and locally produced."

The pair aims to install around 75 units in the Parisian suburbs over the course of 2017, as a start.

Launched earlier this year, Daphni brands itself as the first "VC as a platform" offering full transparency on dealflow and investments to both LPs and entrepreneurs.

Company
Founded in 2015 in La Courneuve, Agricool is an effort to produce fruit and vegetables without pesticides inside repurposed shipping containers where irrigation, light and cardon dioxide levels can be controlled.

People
Daphni – Pierre-Eric Leibovici (co-founder, partner).
Kima Ventures – Jean de la Rochebrochard (partner).

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Expansion
• France
• Consumer
• France
• Venture