The method of farming uses technology like artificial intelligence and robotics to grow fruits and vegetables, producing 30 times the yield of traditional farming while using 90% less water, the company claims. All rights reserved. A SPAC is formed with the sole purpose of raising capital through an IPO in order to acquire an existing privately-held company and take it public. Eventually, he found the right problem to solve. AppHarvest is a unique and compelling investment opportunity that is redefining American agriculture by improving access for all to fresh non-GMO produce, growing more with fewer resources, and creating an agtech hub from within Appalachia, Novus chairman Bob Laikin said in a statement. WebGet Chad Hill's email address (c*****@appharvest.com) and phone number at RocketReach. Most people every day are just concerned about can they put food on the table? Webb, a Kentucky native and University of Kentucky graduate, says he remains committed to his goal of employing large numbers of people at high-tech farms around the eastern half of the state. Follow him on Twitter to get more updates. Sustainable investor Equilibrium Moser: That's exciting. We're one of four companies that are publicly traded that have both of those as a company. A specialist in knee surgery, Jonathan Webb was a rugby union fullback for the English national team from 1987 to 1993. I was hoping maybe we could talk a little bit about that idea that you're farmers and futurists. Again, for us, it's about keeping our head down, growing good fruit and vegetables. Jonathan strives to work alongside the hard-working men and women of Eastern Kentucky and build an inclusive economy for the future. He represented his country in 33 Test matches and played for Bristol and Bath. Were building important stuff with long-standing value, so the Great Resignation has actually helped us acquire talent.. Brooke DiPalma is a producer and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Jonathan received his bachelors degree from the University of Kentucky. By being able to have robotics and AI they can have more real-time information. Are we perfect? For young people, we've invested heavily in high school education here in this region and part of it is, we're not just building facilities, we're building an ecosystem and part of that is change the narrative that farming is simply outdoors and on a tractor, we very much respect American farmers, we have great respect for the four-season farmer that's putting food on our table but we have to get young people to think, the average age of the American farmer is about 60 years old, and so for us by investing in high schools, it's teaching young people you're operating a farm with an iPhone and iPad using industrial sensors, with robotics operating on AI. It feels like this is something that really is just getting some traction here. You start to do the math, and realize you might need two planet earths to have enough land and water to grow that food.. I hope you enjoy our conversation. "We have the capital we need and we're focused on building and operating, and just head down on execution," Webb said. Thanks as always to Tim Sparks for putting the show together for us. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice| Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information| Ad Choices The greenhouse, completed in 2020, yields up to 30 times the crops a traditional farm would, Webb said. Running AppHarvest this way definitely creates extra workthe company even has facilitators who help employees navigate unexpected life events that might prevent them from coming to workbut its work Webb considers essential. He pointed out that, At NASA in the 60s, if you would go visit a facility and you walked up to a janitor and asked, What do you do here? they would say, Im working to put a man on the moon. Thats been the same mentality here Its the collective thats making this thing possible.. Moser: Yeah. Moser: That's going to do it for us this week, folks. We can get to 70% of the U.S. in a one-day drive. But then there's the other side, and introducing robotics that's operating on AI, that's collecting data in our facility and making data-driven decisions. You have to judge yourself internally. Like every Kentuckian, Jonathan grew up knowing of the devastating job losses in the region. We believe controlled environment agriculture is the third wave of sustainable infrastructure. One, our geographic location. AppHarvest raised over $475 million in a public IPO, but it is not over. Clearly, the younger generation is coming up, sustainability matters, better food matters. "It's hard to be the one that's looking two decades down the road while thinking of the here and now.". We dont talk about this at all in the US. I have a 16 and then going on 15-year-old daughters. We're feeding our country with people in Mexico who are making $5 a day. Why locate in Appalachia? "And we don't think we could do that if we weren't in the public markets.". These food companies today are like the cigarette companies 40 years ago. Never miss a story: Follow your favorite topics and authors to get a personalized email with the journalism that matters most to you. The business combination values AppHarvest at a $1.0 billion pro forma equity value, at the $10.00 per share PIPE price and assuming minimal redemptions by Novus Capital shareholders. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. He has also held roles in movies and television series. While living in Washington D.C. developing sustainable energy farms, Jonathan researched another type of farming the Netherlands and its high-tech greenhouses that in a single acre yield as much as 10 outdoor acres and virtually eliminate the use of chemicals. Many of our early investors have been very helpful with the company, and we knew that we are not just building one facility, we're building an organization that's going to go toe-to-toe with agriculture and food, globally. AppHarvest knows its far from being the only player in the CEA game. That narrow focus on societal good is what has kept AppHarvest fully staffed throughout the pandemic. We have a phenomenal team of sustainability experts. You are speaking our language here at The Fool. Webb, a former rugby player, has a wealth experience and is now helping players return to the sport they love. I fundamentally do not think its a tradeoff. How do you feel about coming public a lot earlier than you probably would've normally? I feel like with AppHarvest, at least, my takeaway, I found a lot of things that make you all special. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Jonathan about the growing opportunity in the AgTech space. But one thing we'd like to talk about is competitive advantage, what makes a company special? AppHarvest is recovering from a challenging third quarter, in which it reported a net loss of over $17 million; Webb attributes it to hyper-growth. We're building these facilities here where we can access markets and get to about three-quarters of the U.S. on a day drive. That's, for us, again, there's a piece where we need to be very close to the product and that's we're optimizing for the plant. His Twitter account is one of the most popular on the social network. The deal is slated to bring in $475 million in gross proceeds for Kentucky-based AppHarvest, including a private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction Because our services are focused on technology, 5G connectivity, and all of the different benefits we're going to get from that. Every year, he gives a lecture to students enrolled in a post-graduate shipping LLM program. The private markets can be a part of every solution we have that we're seeing today. What weve proven through a global pandemic is that we can build one of the largest facilities in the world on time, on budget, at a record pace.. Moser: I guess you're saying, and a lot of us would agree, you can't have your cake and eat it too. It's the workforce that we're going to use to grow the organization. His extensive experience and knowledge in the field have led to his reputation as a leading knee surgeon in the UK. Webb was also the first LPGA player to win $1 million in a single season, finishing first on the year-end money list. He has become a prominent social media star. If we're going to be working with the largest players in the world, then we need to be in the big leagues, and the only way to do that is to be a publicly traded company. I've tried to say, we have a team that looks at this as this is our 30-year journey here at AppHarvest. AppHarvest is an indoor farming company, so has massive greenhouses Were investing heavily in our future, so were spending heavily today, he said. Here, we've had three years out of the last ten years in Kentucky have been our wettest years on state record. Later, in 1993, he relocated to the United Kingdom, where he completed his LLM. Again to some of your viewers that aren't aware of Root AI just look them up and take a look at some of those videos. In the same year, he scored his second try after just 23 seconds. We can better understand what product we are going to have available? The world's food and agriculture problems are not going to be solved overnight. Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman at the 2022 SXSW Conference, 3 big things in investing you might have missed this week, UPDATE 1-North Korea says US causing international arms control collapse, EU releases funds, prepares aid flight for eastern Congo, Rheinmetall in talks on building tank factory in Ukraine - report, Ukraine Latest: Metsola Urges More Sanctions Pressure on Russia. That might sound straight from science fiction, but AppHarvests CTO Josh Lessing, who designed many of these universal harvesting systems says we only think that because farming has been so slow to innovate. A former England international, he reached the World Cup Final in 1991 and was a two-time grand slam champion in the Five Nations. He has successfully completed over 200 operations using the Mako machine. I mean, that is right in line. Visualize our facility in Murray, Kentucky, it's 2.8 million square feet, nearly 50 football fields under-glass. As I was listening, there was a quote, you said, "We are farmers and futurists." Once operational, it will ship 45 million pounds of fresh produce annually to grocery stores in the Midwest and Southeast. Because it is cutting-edge technology. To me, this feels like just that, a growing market opportunity that is global in nature, and really the opportunity, just getting started. He has published numerous papers on the topic of knee ligament injuries, arthroscopic surgery, and other techniques. It's a nice evolution in the investing world that we care more and more about it. in August is launching what it describes as the worlds largest greenhouse later this year, consisting of a 2.76 million square foot facility in Morehead, Kentucky. Then by the end of the year in 2022, we'll have five facilities operating. Even with the help of AI, farm work at AppHarvest is still hard, manual labor. monitored for quality control 24/7 and harvested robotically. Webb is from Kentucky, where 16% of residents are Consumers are pushing back. One of the things we like to discuss as investors and when we find companies, we find businesses that we like and we want to be owners of. Who were the most active food and agriculture technology venture capital firms in 2022. He was made a Fellow of the British Association of Surgery on the Knee (BASK), and has since taught many international and national athletes in sports medicine. They have 10% of the world's freshwater. Get the latest news and research from AFN & AgFunder in your inbox. Webb: To put this in perspective, this was our first facility under operations, our flagship facility. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Flipboard, and LinkedIn. Do the hard work to create shareholder value now while also looking out for shareholders two decades from now, Webb said is his credo. We're ramping up and scaling quickly. Then we have to remember this isn't just a U.S. problem we're trying to solve. Webb is an expert in reconstructive and arthroscopic surgery. A specialist in knee surgery, Webb has performed countless surgeries in elite rugby union teams. A Kentucky native and University of Kentucky graduate, Jonathan Webb is turning his dream of a high-tech farming hub in Appalachia into reality with AppHarvest. On today's show, AppHarvest Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb talks about AgTech (agriculture tech), the third wave of sustainable infrastructure. I did want to know here because I saw this in the earnings release and I just thought it was one of those quotes that stood out to me from Mastronardi, your distributor. We're really in the business of packaging up water and then shipping that out to major markets and then beyond that execution at scale. Are you going to have drought? You've had fast-food chains, that is one of the biggest risk to a grocer is the paranoia and being terrified of where that product is being grown. The private markets don't need to be a part of the problem, but we can't just be quarterly earnings focused. Those robots have collected the worlds largest data set of tomato images, and each one is equipped with cameras and a laser that creates a 3D scan of the crops in front of it to determine what needs to be done at any given moment. Jason Moser: It's Wednesday, May 26th, I'm your host, Jason Moser, and we've got a terrific interview to share with you on this week's Wildcard Wednesday show. Good CEOs do both., Given the rapidly worsening climate outlook, all founders should focus on building a business that will be more powerful in 30 years than it will in 30 days, he said. You can also follow him on Instagram. Two years into production, AppHarvest already provides 500 living wage jobs, is a second chance employer, and aims to hire a team as diverse as our nation and then empower them as individuals. Plus, the company is a B corp, a public benefit corporation, and its publicly traded. "Tech for good the consumer wants it. I mean, all of the stuff that you just talked about really does matter. We want to be at Kroger. On Twitter, the actor shares his personal experiences with his followers. Become a Motley Fool member today to get instant access to our top analyst recommendations, in-depth research, investing resources, and more. Jason Moser has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. $157M Today's Change (-7.84%) -$0.08 Current Price $0.94 Price as of March 1, 2023, 1:16 p.m. Instead of just being able to tell a grocer 24-hours in advance here's the quality of product and here's when it will be shipped, with robotics going down the rows scanning the plants, we'll be able to get to days out and weeks out of being able to predict the yield, predict the quality, give more information to the grocer on when that product is going to be coming. Were building robotics and software that will ultimately be able to service the entire global agriculture industry. Despite IPOs last year having the worst returns in a decade, Webb said he believed 2021 was an important time for the company to go public and stood by the decision to take the company's mission "directly to the Street" and to receive the "rigor of Wall Street early," which he claimed will only make the company "stronger in the long run.". They're not going to be solved in a month or a year or a quarter and we just want to build an organization that's going to be able to go toe-to-toe with the larger incumbents out there, and the best way to do that is to have that rigor of being a publicly traded company. Before founding AppHarvest, Jonathan worked with the U.S. Department of Defense on the largest solar project in the Southeastern United States. This year alone, more than 50 SPACs have been formed in the US, collectively raising around $36.2 billion as of last month. Moser: Well, you said it on the call. ", "It's easy to be a CEO that's looking for the next three months," Webb stated. Webb: The industry is at an inflection point. Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to see just more about AppHarvest to talk about all the stuff that you're trying to accomplish there. PIPE deals effectively allow institutional investors to buy larger quantities of public company stock, typically at a discount to public market prices.
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