Kalera’s &ever acquisition ‘will not slow global expansion plans’

Kalera’s acquisition of German vertical farmer &ever will not slow the American company’s global expansion plans, according to chief executive Daniel Malechuk.

Euronext-listed vertical farmer Kalera acquired &ever in mid-August for €130 million, after the company entered the market seeking to raise a Series B or solicit a partnership with a private equity or venture capital, said Malechuck.

Kalera has operational facilities in Orlando and Atlanta, with additional farms announced in Texas, Colorado, Seattle, Ohio and Hawaii, while &ever has operations in Germany, Singapore and Kuwait.

“We’re not slowing down with what we were working on independently, both &ever and Kalera and what’s great now is actually that can be accelerated,” Malechuck told Argi Investor.

“We now just picked up Singapore and Kuwait, but there’s a lot of opportunity that we are still focused on, and now we’ll be able to more rapidly go together and attack that international expansion.”

The combination of the two businesses also means Kalera is now the only vertical farming company able to offer the wholehead baby lettuce products that Kalera has concentrated on since its launch in 2010, as well as &ever’s microgreens products, according to Malechuck. Kalera’s capabilities were also enhanced by the acquisition of vertical farming seed company Vindara in February.

Kalera has raised over $200 million, $100 million of which was raised when the company listed on the Euronext exchange in October 2020. The company has partnered with Bank of America Merrill Lynch to list in the US in 2022, said Malechuk.

The company does not have a majority shareholder, with the 10 percent share owned by the Prince of Lichtenstein’s LGT Lightstone Fund the largest shareholder. Other shareholders include private family offices, pension funds and insurance firms based in Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific, confirmed the CEO.

“Kalera, I think, very clearly could say that we’re the largest indoor vertical farming company in the world before the &ever acquisition,” said Malechuk.

“We’ve got multiple farms in operation, several currently under construction, and then when you add in the &ever operations, there’s nobody really in the world that rivals us, to my knowledge.”