£5.4m funding boost for Scottish 'vertical farm' firm Published duration 18 June 2019

image copyright IGS image caption The firm opened its demonstration centre in Invergowrie last year

The Perth and Kinross-based firm behind Scotland's first "vertical farm" has received £5.4m funding to grow its business.

Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) said it had received "significant interest" since opening its demonstration facility in Invergowrie last year.

It said the funding would allow it to create jobs and increase development.

The "vertical farm" aims to create an efficient and waste-free method of growing.

The funding has been received from agri-tech food investor S2G, online venture capital firm AgFunder, and the Scottish Investment Bank.

image caption Basil can be grown in just 20 days in the vertical farm

IGS says it supplies "highly-sophisticated" vertical farming technology to indoor farms to enable the "efficient production of food in any location around the world".

The trial centre is housed in a two-storey white building at the James Hutton Institute.

Researchers have experimented with different colours of light and have managed to reduce the growing time of trial herbs by about half.

David Farquhar, chief executive of Intelligent Growth Solutions, said the industry "is just at the starting line".