Babylon CEO and co-founder Alexander Olesen is singing the praises of an international business accelerator from Virginia, saying his Richmond company’s participation will help the micro-farm business tap into a voracious market abroad.
The company’s micro-farms — indoor hydroponic farming systems powered remotely by cloud technology — cultivate leafy greens and edible crops such as salad blends and culinary herbs that are high value, low volume and hard to source. The underlying technology can be used in an array of hardware applications, Olesen said.
“The need for sustainable farming is much greater overseas than it is in the U.S.,” said Olesen. “There's a big market here. But if you look at places where resources are scarce and especially the Middle East where it's an arid climate, stuff like ours is a real need to have. We get a lot of inbound [interest] from abroad and the program.”
The Virginia Leaders in Export Trade program, or VALET program, is a two-year international business accelerator through the Virginia Economic Development Partnership that offers a combination of capital resources provided by the commonwealth and professional services from private sector partners. Program benefits include executive training, international sales development, educational events and customized research. Babylon is one of only 25 companies per year to participate.
“We currently operate at over 75 locations across the U.S.” said Olesen. “We should be north of 200 by the end of this year. We're one of the larger distributed farm networks in the country. We have a very novel distribution strategy focusing on food. We see a lot of opportunity to bring this concept around the world as we scale up production.”
Olesen declined to discuss Babylon's revenue. He views serving customers coast to coast as a logistical milestone. He said the company is building out its footprint "with some of the nation’s leading food service companies.”
Babylon’s core business is the software platform, with data collected around how to grow the greens successfully.
“Underlying data sets are driving all of our customer support product development from here,” said Oleson. “That's an internal milestone where you can start dialing in your operating cadence.”
The 5-year-old company has a headcount of 33, with recent new funding for its operations and expansion of sales and marketing efforts. Olesen said he has set his sights on launching a new product at the end of April, though he declined to discuss details.
