U.S.-based vertical farming company Oishii has raised US$134 million in Series B funding.

Japanese telecomm company NTT led the round with participation from Bloom8, McWin Capital Partners, Mizuho Bank, Mitsubishi Shokuhin Co., Ltd., the Japan Green Investment Corporation for Carbon Neutrality (JICN), and industrial robotics company Yaskawa Electric Corporation.

Oishii will use the new funds to open a solar-powered vertical farming facility, expand into new markets and invest in R&D projects around breeding, robotics and automation.

Oishii expanded availability of its products for the first time in 2023 to the Northeast U.S. A chunk of the new funding will go towards further expansion, says CEO and co-founder Hiroki Koga.

Oishii’s indoor vertical farming facility in Jersey City currently grows two types of strawberries and the recently unveiled Rubī Tomato. The company already has a “next-generation facility” in the works that will expand its supply of products by more than 10-times, according to Koga.

Oishii currently has berry-picking robots in its farm, which it will continue to fine-tune for accuracy. Other processes, such as packaging and quality checks, are “relatively labour intensive when it comes to strawberries” and might be automated in the future.