.png)
Saving is simple
with GXS
Learn more
Gaurav Saraf was cruising down the financial road to success as an investment banking professional with 11 years of experience specialising in merger and acquisition advisory and leveraged financing in Southeast Asia - i.e. was doing well in a specialised field - when out of the green, he decided to become an urban farmer.
The company he founded, Greenhood, does farming with a twist. Greenhood is Singapore’s first vertical farming greenhouse on a rooftop. Gaurav designed the firm’s own proprietary vertical green technology and is particularly proud of his kale and arugula which he called “out of this world”.
We sat down with him to find out why he traded spreadsheets for soil in Singapore - a notoriously tough industry in an even tougher climate - and advice he has for other budding entrepreneurs.
What made you jump from one tough industry into another?
Greenhood started as a passion project. When Covid-19 hit, I started growing my vegetables from a grow kit at home and loved the experience of growing my own vegetables and then eating the fresh and delicious produce which often eludes us in an urban setting.
In the background of all this, Singapore’s “30 by 30” goal - to produce 30 per cent of the country’s nutritional needs by 2030 - was launched in 2019 and in May 2020, the Singapore Food Agency launched a tender for nine rooftop sites in multi-storey carparks to farm vegetables and other food crops. We decided to submit a tender for it and we got the site we sit on now.
I knew going into this that the industry had its challenges. We are in competition with neighbouring countries where it’s obviously cheaper to grow produce. We do not use chemicals here so we have to pay extra attention to grow our greens and also, they have much more scale built over decades which also contributes to the amount of produce and cost economies they are able to create. On top of all that, they enjoy subsidies from their government.
We knew it would be an uphill task to compete in this kind of environment. But we believed in the story and we believed that as a country, we could make 30 by 30 happen. Today, it hasn’t quite played out, and a lot of farms are struggling. But we go on. We regularly bring the neighbourhood community together to participate in our efforts to build a more secure and sustainable food system and we also work with schools to inculcate the importance of eating well early on.
How do you innovate in an industry that has been around forever?
In Singapore, we have a lot of excess sunlight. Because of that, a lot of farms in Lim Chu Kang, or even greenhouses, install shade nets to cut down the light and the heat. That being said, a lot of greenhouse models in Singapore use LED lights to grow crops. Why? Because these models were developed for western countries where the climate is different.
So, we decided to build our own model. Instead of wasting that light, we thought to ourselves: Why not utilise the light and use the same light over a higher surface area? That’s how we started to look at the concept of vertical farming. To our knowledge, nobody does vertical farming in a greenhouse in Singapore.
Today, our unique technology has been specifically designed for local tropical conditions. Our greenhouse is climate-controlled and we use our patent-pending mobile aeroponic channels and intelligent sensors to automate the climate and nutrition control inside the greenhouse.
What’s next for Greenhood?
Our business model is also evolving. Part of the reason we developed this technology, that is suited for our particular climate, is that we knew there was a technology angle to it. Right now, we supply our technology to schools and hotels where we install miniature versions of our farming rack, which we call mobile aeroponic channels (MAC).
The school angle is important to us because we want students to get curious about the scientific aspects of growing produce, and of course about sustainability, food security. Our goal? To make the circular economy become second nature to the next generation, so it’s no longer a trend, but the status quo.
On the corporate front, we recently launched a “Be-a-Farmer Workshop” and an “Adopt a MAC” programme. The idea is to give busy working individuals a respite from their daily lives by giving them an opportunity to don a farmer’s hat, get close to nature and enjoy the fruits of their labour. All while playing a meaningful role and pushing the message of sustainability.
We’re also looking for the right partners to scale up our technology, figure out how to innovate so we can roll it out on a larger scale and have more impact.
Do you have advice for others looking to take the leap into entrepreneurship?
- Passion: This may sound cliche but I think it’s important that you are really passionate about what you’re doing because entrepreneurship is not easy at all. It’s very, very, very difficult to say the least especially if you’re doing something as brick and mortar as ours. If you don’t believe in what you’re doing it’s easy to be derailed.
- Think out of the box: When identifying a business model you need some creativity to understand where the gaps are and see what you have unique to yourself that can address these gaps. For us, what makes us unique is the vertical farming structure which is able to make better use of sunlight, a free resource. Beyond increasing our productivity it goes back to a central question: If we’re doing more of what’s already out there, what’s the business rationale for doing it in the first place? So we set out to be different - and multiple times different to what’s out there at that - because, otherwise why do it?
- Timing: There’s no good or bad idea. Timing plays a very important role on if your idea will be successful. That is, unfortunately, something that can only be identified in hindsight. But that’s the fun and risky part of going into business right?
By the way, if you’re an entrepreneur we’ve got your back! Get actionable tips and be inspired by our stories on entrepreneurship and check out our business banking options on our GXS Business Banking website.
