California, U.S.-based Hippo Harvest, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) startup developing advanced greenhouse systems announced the close of its $21M Series B funding round.

The funding will be used to scale the company’s greenhouse operations and to expand its product offerings into new categories of leafy greens.

Founded in 2019, Hippo Harvest operates a repurposed greenhouse facility in Pescadero, Calif. that it says out-competes traditional greenhouses in scalability and unit economics, and is comparable to traditional outdoor-grown produce prices. The company utilizes a closed-loop, non-recirculating, direct-to-root fertilizer system, machine learning and autonomous mobile robots to calculate and distribute water, fertilizer, light and heating on a micro-climate basis throughout its greenhouses.

“We’re excited by the opportunity to scale our production and reach more consumers with high-quality, sustainable produce,” said Hippo Harvest CEO Eitan Marder-Eppstein. “Our team’s work over the past 12 months demonstrates our ability to create modular, cost-effective growing systems that can be deployed across the country.”

The company’s farming methods include plants that are irrigated with purified water and a customized nutrient blend from below, rather than above, reducing the risk of pathogen and fungus formation. Off-the-shelf robots with customized attachments are used to tend to and harvest the plants, delivering precise levels of water and nutrition. The company uses beneficial insects, natural oils and other pesticide free practices.

The funding round was led by Standard Investments; Congruent Ventures, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Hawthorne Food Ventures and Energy Impact Partners also participated in the round.