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Gatineau startup Plantaform’s fundraising drive shifts into high gear with help from F1 star

August 20, 2024

Founded four years ago, Plantaform has secured more than $3 million in seed funding for its products that use technology called fogponics, a technique pioneered by NASA that nourishes plants with nutrient-enriched water vapour rather than soil.

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A Gatineau startup whose indoor gardens allow users to grow vegetables and herbs without using soil is shifting its latest fundraising drive into high gear – thanks to a big assist from one of the world’s top race-car drivers. Founded four years ago, Plantaform has secured more than $3 million in seed funding for its products that use technology called fogponics, a technique pioneered by NASA that nourishes plants with nutrient-enriched water vapour rather than soil. Unlike traditional hydroponics systems, Plantaform’s “smart garden” – called Rejuvenate – doesn’t submerge plant roots in water. Instead, it circulates a nutrient-infused mist throughout an egg-shaped device roughly 60 centimetres high by 60 centimetres wide. The fledgling biotech enterprise, which manufactures most of the components for its indoor gardens in Montreal and assembles them in Gatineau, has seven full-time employees and about 20 part-time workers. It has already sold hundreds of the devices in Canada and the United States and is making inroads in other parts of the world, including the United Arab Emirates, where co-founder and CEO Alberto Aguilar used to live. Aguilar says Plantaform is looking at setting up a satellite sales office in the UAE or Saudi Arabia and recently registered as a business in Miami in a bid to beef up its presence down south. It’s also aiming to raise an additional US$3 million to help finance its expansion plans. “Canada is getting a little bit tough,” Aguilar said. “A lot of people are tighter with their money, so we’re trying to look for options elsewhere. The target market (in the U.S. and UAE) is bigger and there’s more of a willingness to pay.” Plantaform’s push for more cash recently got a major lift when Formula One driver Yuki Tsunoda signed on as a partner in the firm.

Keen evangelist

Beyond helping Plantaform financially, Tsunoda has become a keen evangelist for the young Gatineau company, promoting its products on his social media channels and introducing the founders to other well-heeled potential investors such as fellow Formula One star Charles Leclerc. “His dream is to open a restaurant after F1,” Aguilar said of Tsunoda, whose enthusiastic reaction last year to receiving a customized Rejuvenate kit decked out with the same design as the one on his racing helmet garnered millions of views on TikTok. “This is kind of aligned with his ethos. Yuki appreciates organic and fresh produce. He wants to be behind a mission like that.” So how did an athlete in one of the world’s biggest and best-known sporting circuits end up owning a stake in a small Gatineau tech company? As it turns out, Tsunoda and Plantaform co-founder Kiwa Lang, whose fathers used to work together, have known each other for years. Lang’s Instagram posts about Plantaform’s products caught his buddy’s eye, and Lang introduced Tsunoda to Aguilar during the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal two years ago. Aguilar said the 24-year-old F1 star quickly “fell in love” with Plantaform and its mission, and the seeds of a business partnership were sown. The native of Japan occupies a coveted place in the sporting pantheon as one of two drivers on the Visa Cash App RB Formula One team. His association with Plantaform offers opportunities its founders never would have dreamed of when they hatched the venture in 2020. Later this year, for example, they’re planning to attend F1 races in Abu Dhabi and Qatar, where they hope to rub shoulders with celebrities like Hollywood star and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds, who owns a stake in the racing circuit’s Alpine team. “Now we’re able to go to F1 races in strategic locations and network with all these people and create these partnerships which open up new doors,” Aguilar noted. “We’re quite excited about this.” Tsunoda’s willingness to play an active role in growing his new investment extends beyond the confines of the racetrack. In May, for example, he joined Plantaform’s founders on the set of CBC’s Dragons’ Den when they pitched the Dragons for a segment that’s expected to air in late September. Aguilar can’t reveal whether their efforts paid off with a cheque from any of the investors on the long-running show, but their new partner’s star power is clearly not lost on his associates. “Ottawa is small, but Gatineau is even smaller. So having a world celebrity like (Tsunoda) joining a startup from Gatineau has definitely raised a lot of eyebrows.”