3 min read
Waleed Arshad is an experienced AgriTech entrepreneur and has been actively involved in the AgriTech startup scene for a long time now. He has reached out to the people of rural areas of Punjab and provided them with the knowledge of technological experiments and helped them improve yield and quality.
Waleed’s first AgriTech project was back in 2015 in which he worked with the processes involved with the plantation of flowers later he moved on to different kinds of vegetables, and cash crops, and kept trying his luck with different varieties. Waleed started that project from 1 acre and scaled it up to 1000 acres of land.
2020 is the year in which Waleed finally came to realize his actual passion and stepped into “Vertical Farming”. He built his first Hydroponic Greenhouse and started growing high-quality vegetables to be exported. Waleed was also selected for the Hero Training Program by Draper University earlier this year. Draper University, also known as Draper University of Heroes, specializes in making an idea into a product and scaling your existing business to the next level with top-tier venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Past speakers have included Elon Musk (Tesla), Aaron Levie (Box), and Tony Hsieh (Zappos).
At the beginning of 2022, he started working on the idea of building something big around vertical greenhouses in order to provide the community with healthier, fresher, greener, and more organic produce. His goals regarding the project were huge including cutting short the supply chain and trying to decrease carbon footprint and global warming and with these tremendous goals in mind, “VeGrow Farms” came into being.
VeGrow Farms has a very talented and young blood team which consists of the Founder Waleed Arshad, and the Chief Marketing Officer Jasia Farooq, also a young professional working in the Pakistani Marketing industry for some time and has experience across multiple industries including Telecom, Fintech, and Food Retail.
Team VeGrow Farms claims that they will be using this funding for their MVP and increasing the pace of product development and ultimately building and expanding their supply chain.
The founder Waleed Arshad refused to answer the question about the magnitude of the investment by saying:
“We can’t officially disclose the amount right now as we are heads down on building and we want to keep that our main focus. We will disclose it 6 months from now”.
VeGrow Farm’s major focus is on reducing the CO2 (carbon) footprint that traditional farming imposes on the environment.VeGrow Farms advocates the technique of growing crops in a vertical direction using as little water as 5% of what conventional farming might consume.
If we can integrate the use of advanced technology in the agriculture world, the crop yield can be increased, disease can be controlled and the quality of crops can be improved immensely to produce fresher, greener, and healthier products for everyone.
If we can successfully implement these ideas from VeGrowFarmsinto our all of traditional agricultural lands, every town can have a place where you can get fresh, nutritious organic produce without having to deal with the hassle of sourcing, fluctuating rates from growing inflation, unreliable quality and changes from global warming.
Building a vertical farming unit in most urban settings that can provide fresh and healthy green to locals can contribute towards decreasing the organic produce carbon footprint by shortening the supply chains.
“Global Warming is getting worse day by day. If we don’t take a step today we will be very sorry in 2050. After the recent floods in Pakistan, I feel like it’s now or never for us.” Said Waleed, Founder of VeGrow Farms.
