This independent, third-party funding will accelerate the expansion of Bowery’s network of smart indoor farms beyond the East Coast and brings its total debt and equity capital raised to more than $647 million — representing the strongest institutional backing in the Controlled Environmental Agriculture industry. KKR’s credit investment follows Bowery’s $325 million Series C funding in 2021 led by Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC.

The Company also announced today that it is building two new state-of-the-art farms serving the Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas metro areas. The farms will create more than 200 year-round green jobs across both markets and provide locally grown produce to a population of 20 million and 16 million within a 200-mile radius of Locust Grove, Georgia and Arlington, Texas, respectively. Both farms are expected to open in the first quarter of 2023.

The two new farms, leveraging billions of data points collected from previous farms, will feature industry-leading tech innovations resulting in efficiency improvements to all elements of the grow environment, from LED lighting to water recapture to climate control, ultimately improving quality and yield. These farms represent a recommitment to Bowery’s sustainability goals; the company plans to use power from 100% renewable sources.

“We’re thrilled to announce our expansion beyond the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions,” said Irving Fain, CEO and Founder of Bowery Farming. “KKR’s support is a testament to the proven success of our business model and a strong vote of confidence in our technology leadership and ability to address critical challenges in the current agricultural system. There is enormous economic opportunity that comes with supporting our mission to democratize access to local, pesticide-free Protected Produce, and now we are ready to continue our growth more rapidly.”

The new financing will also provide resources to accelerate advancements in farm design and the BoweryOS, giving more communities access to a reliable supply of locally-grown produce, year-round. Bowery’s proprietary farm design and technology have been a key priority since the Company was founded and are at the heart of its efficient and scalable business model. The BoweryOS, the central nervous system of the business, integrates software, hardware, sensors, computer vision systems, AI, and robotics to orchestrate and automate the entirety of operations. Each new farm comes online in record speed, collectively benefitting from the power of the network and its billions of data points.

“We are excited to support Bowery’s pioneering efforts in vertical farming, which are directly contributing to the resiliency of our food supply,” said Michelle Hour, Director at KKR. “We believe that Bowery has the right commercial model, technology and team to capitalize on the rapidly growing consumer demand for sustainably-sourced food, and we look forward to helping the Company continue to innovate and scale to benefit communities across the United States.”

Bowery has continued to grow at a significant pace in 2021 and achieved a number of milestones; highlights include:

• More than doubling revenue
• Opening Farm X,  a state-of-the-art innovation hub for plant science in Kearny New Jersey, expanding R&D capacity by nearly 300%
• Transforming an industrial site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania into a technologically advanced smart farm
• Breaking ground on two additional large-scale commercial farms in Locust Grove, Georgia (located in Henry County near Atlanta, home to rapid population and job growth) and Arlington, Texas (located in the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, a rapidly growing technology and manufacturing hub)
• Expanding our reach to more than 800 stores through a partnership with Wakefern, the nation’s largest retailer-owned cooperative, including brands such as Gourmet Garage, Shoprite, Fairway, The Fresh Grocer, and Dearborn Market

As valuations flounder for Silicon Valley startups once worth billions of dollars, investor interest is on the rise in startups with both financial and social benefits, such as healthcare software for poor communities or low cost solar panels for homes.

So-called “impact investing” rose to $15.2 billion globally last year from $10.6 billion in 2014, according to a recent report by the Global Impact Investing Network. The figure includes several types of investment, from funds to foundations, which intend to generate social and financial returns.

The group expects a 16% rise in 2016. The change reflects investor concern with current valuations of more mainstream technology startups, a desire to help by some investors and a broadening definition of social-good startups. There is also growing sentiment that the rise of mobile technology will allow for profitable upstarts in parts of the world relatively untouched by Silicon Valley.

Earlier this year Union Square Ventures Partner Fred Wilson called the developing world “the next whitespace” for venture capital, pointing to 2.5 billion people poised to adopt smartphones.

Altruism and Profits for Kickstarter the Public Benefit Corporation

Big financial institutions such as Bank of America  BAC -7.34%  and JPMorgan Chase  JPM -6.95%  are investing, seeing rural communities and emerging markets as potential customers for financial services.

The drop in valuations for tech industry darlings that do “things my mom used to do for me” was a “pivotal wake up” for investors, said Doug Galen, chief executive of RippleWorks, which provides advisers for entrepreneurs in the developing world.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, put on by the U.S. State Department this week at Stanford University for entrepreneurs from around the world, he and others poked fun at businesses made by and for well-off Americans.

“Uber for pets or overnight underwear delivery—those things definitely aren’t getting the same traction they were six months ago,” Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures, a venture firm for ‘world-positive’ investing, said in an interview with Reuters. “But take water (shortages) —on the other side of that solution is a massive pot of gold,” he said.

How Companies Can Enrich Shareholders—and the Planet

The case for investing in social impact startups is the sheer size of the market; millions of people lack access to clean water, for instance. But, with companies serving customers living on $2 a day, profits can at times be slim.

“Maybe 2% is a fabulous return in some cases,” said Matthew Bannick, managing partner at Omidyar Network.

By comparison, traditional venture capitalists might seek a return 10 times their investment.

Some impact investors such as DBL Partners have had strong returns by using a broader definition of ‘social impact.’ DBL considers its investments in electric car company Tesla Motors and Juicero, a juice company that raised $70 million in March, as having both financial gain and social impact.

“You can walk and chew gum at the same time,” said Nancy Pfund, founder of DBL, which raised a $400 million fund last year.

Still, many of the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firms have steered clear of investing outside their comfort zone.

“Your impact could be bigger. Stop looking at the 60 mile (area)” of Silicon Valley, Youssef Chaqor, founder and general manager of Kilimanjaro Environment, which recycles used cooking oil into biodiesel, told an audience of investors and entrepreneurs.

Some venture capitalists are worried about emerging market risks, such as fluctuating currencies, military coups, disease and corruption. Others don’t see enough profit.

Andrea Carafa, founder and CEO of art and music event coordinator ArtsUp, says he does not bother to tell Silicon Valley venture capitalists about the societal benefits of his startup.

“They don’t care if you’re a social impact company,” he said. “They care about your profitability.”

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The Finnish arm of Sweden’s Nordea Bank will be the first Nordic bank to offer businesses access to the crowdfunding market by launching a technology platform in the summer of 2016.

The technology will enable investors to provide capital for growing businesses through automated processes – a major change for a bank as it will not be providing the capital but enabling other organisations or individuals to do so.

Startup businesses are increasingly turning to crowds for financing – the European crowdfunding market topped €6bn in 2015.

“Digitisation is transforming the banking industry and we want to be part of that transformation,” Topi Manner, CEO of Nordea Bank Finland, told Computer Weekly. “We will offer startups and growth companies the chance to find funding through a digital platform and bring together investors and companies in need of financing.”

Pan-African Ecobank is partnering with Orange Cameroon to allow the telco’s customers with accounts at the bank to transfer cash between the two services. The two firms are already working together in Mali and plan to introduce the service in four other African countries.

Banks partnering with mobile companies is the latest attempt by financial firms to tap into the continent’s large populace of the “unbanked.”

In sub-Saharan Africa, only a third of adults have access to bank accounts. Compare this to Latin America, another emerging market, the figure stands at 51%, according to the World Bank. There are a lot of people whose money simply never touches the region’s financial systems.

The mobile phone revolution and the rise of mobile money, especially in east Africa with platforms such as M-Pesa, has changed this.

Mobile money is now big business in Africa. Last year, the market generated $656m in revenue and in the next four years this is expected to double to $1.3 billion, analysts say.

Until recently, financial firms ceded this space to telecom companies. But the clear growth of the sector has compelled a re-evaluation. Now banks are not only trying to compete in this space but also offer new products that promise access to banking services to those who up until this point were excluded.

So in Nigeria, for example, GT Bank are getting in business with Etisalat Nigeria, the country’s third biggest mobile operator, to create GTEasySavers, a savings account that can be opened via mobile phones. For the 57% of the country with no access to formal financial services, that’s a small step in the right direction.

And in Kenya, in 2011, only 42% of people had bank accounts. That has risen dramatically, driven by mobile money platforms.

A battle for supremacy

New mobile products coming into the market promise to deepen financial inclusion even further. Equity Bank are introducing Equitel, its telecoms unit, that will allow customers to access credit loans, perform cross border money transfers and send and receive money from other commercial banks, reports Reuters.

Equity is one of the biggest banks in east Africa and since the soft launch of Equitel in October of last year, the service has attracted a millions subscribers. The bank aims to increase that figure to 5 million by year’s end.

And the market is there. Mobile money transfers claim 85% penetrationin Kenya and $23 billion passed through the platforms in 2014 alone, according to Kenya’s central bank–equivalent to 42% of the country’s GDP.

And the dominant player in this space is Safaricom, controlling two-third market share with over 20 million subscribers generating $318 million of revenue. But with the launch of Equitel, powered by its rival Airtel Kenya, Safaricom’s number one status may finally start to get challenged.

“Competition between Equitel (banks) and Safaricom ?(telcos) will benefit end consumers and financial inclusion in general as mobile money has a platform to reach those who are not included,” Martin Warioba, a tech consultant with the World Bank, told Quartz. “As long as pricing is low enough to include the unbanked, mobile money services and healthy competition will benefit consumers and increase financial inclusion.”

With Equitel being free of charge and interoperable across banks and other mobile money services, Equity Bank could challenge Safaricom’s dominance in the market, especially since they charge a fee for the use of M-Pesa.

But the company’s CEO is not worried. “We welcome competition; it is a true indicator of the free and robust operating environment we have in Kenya,” Bob Collymore said in a statement.

Safaricom has its own partnerships, with Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) providing M-Shwari, a platform whereby people can access banking services such as saving accounts and small loans via their mobile phones. And in March they launched KCB M-Pesa with Kenya Commercial Bank, a mobile phone-based loan repayable platform.

By Omar of Quartz Africa