Standard Investments
Canvas Category Consultancy : Company : Private Equity
Standard Investments is a fundamentally-driven investment platform focused on the intersection of industry and technology. We deploy capital flexibly and creatively across the public and private markets, spanning the life cycle of a company. We leverage our deep industrial knowledge and operational experience to create value.
Assembly Line
Hippo Harvest Announces $21 Million Series B Funding Led by Standard Investments to Scale Next-Generation Greenhouse Platform
Hippo Harvest, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) startup developing advanced greenhouse systems that produce sustainably-grown produce, announced the close of its $21M Series B funding round led by Standard Investments. Congruent Ventures, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Hawthorne Food Ventures, and Energy Impact Partners also participated in the 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 first-of-its-kind repurposed greenhouse facility in Pescadero, CA that 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 efficiently distribute water, fertilizer, light, and heating on a micro-climate basis throughout its greenhouses. The result is significantly more cost and resource efficient production of fresh produce. Consumers and retailers enjoy the superior quality, consistency, and food safety of Hippo greens at competitive prices.
Albedo Raises $35M to Commercialize Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO)
Albedo, the first company to offer aerial quality imagery from space - enabled by the new orbit frontier of VLEO (very low earth orbit) - today announced a $35M Series A-1 financing round led by Standard Investments, bringing the company’s total funding to $97M. Participation in the round included new investors Booz Allen Ventures, Cubit Capital, and Bill Perkins, along with existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Shield Capital, Initialized Capital, Y Combinator, Giant Step Capital, Republic Capital, and other undisclosed participants. In addition, Ben Sampson, Managing Director of Standard Investments, will join the Albedo Board of Directors.
“The Series A-1 funding will be used to launch Albedo’s first operational satellite and accelerate constellation deployment — ultimately proving out and proliferating the world’s first high-res VLEO platform,” said Topher Haddad, CEO of Albedo.
Standard Investments, Home Depot Ventures, and Carl Bass Back Higharc’s Generative Design Solution to Help U.S. Homebuilders
Higharc, the intelligent homebuilding platform for design, sales, and construction, today announced a strategic investment to accelerate the adoption of its generative design technology and help transform the homebuilding process. The investment was made by Standard Investments, the investment arm of global industrial company Standard Industries; Home Depot Ventures™, the venture capital fund managed by the world’s largest home improvement retailer; and Carl Bass, former president and CEO of Autodesk, Inc., who joins Higharc as an advisor.
Higharc’s platform automatically produces everything needed to design, sell, and build homes at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional software. This also enables buyers to configure their new home using online 3D models and also dramatically speeds up the builder’s ability to get these homes to market.
Nikola Labs Raises Additional Growth Capital to Transform Maintenance in Manufacturing through $29 Million Series A Preferred Round
Nikola Labs announced today that it has received an additional $9 million in Series A Preferred funding, including participation from Standard Investments. The additional capital closes out the Series A Preferred round, giving Nikola Labs over $29 million in fresh capital to pursue growth and raising its total funding to date to $50 million.