GreenV will acquire a 100% stake in Green Simplicity, as per an agreement reached by the parties. The relatively young knowledge and technology company Green Simplicity, founded in 2014 and based in Andijk, the Netherlands, employs eight people. Green Simplicity Research delivers research systems to help clients determine the ideal growth conditions for crop cultivation in a fully controlled environment. Green Simplicity Concepts is primarily concerned with concept development and the practical realization of systems for large-scale controlled daylight-free cultivation.
Green Simplicity currently serves approximately 250 customers, mainly growers and breeders active in the Netherlands. With the acquisition, GreenV will obtain unique knowledge and technology to advise and support its customers around the world with the development of new cultivation concepts that maximize the potential of crops through a range of innovations in automation, climate control, lighting, and software, accelerating growth and increasing yield in both environments with daylight (conventional greenhouses) and without daylight (indoor farms).
As the new innovative ‘hub’ within GreenV, Green Simplicity will collaborate closely with the indoor farming activities and other companies of the group: Prins Group and Prins USA (greenhouse construction), Stolze (installation engineering), HT Verboom (internal transport systems), Voshol Warmte- en Elektrotechniek and JV Energy Solutions (climate and installation engineering)
For Wessel van Paassen, founder and director of Green Simplicity, the collaboration with these companies opens up unprecedented opportunities for the future. “We have already collaborated on several projects with HT Verboom, so we were already acquainted with GreenV. The group’s ambition to become the reference in the international horticultural industry aligns seamlessly with our ambitions and propositions. Right now, we are still a relatively small knowledge, data, and technology enterprise. By joining the other GreenV companies, we not only gain access to a huge network of relationships and potential clients but also massively increase our capacity to deliver and scale up our concepts and test environments on location for clients,” he said.
Stronger crops in fully controlled conditions
The research systems of Green Simplicity Research enable growers and breeders to execute crop-specific research and test the performance of their own crops in a (fully) controlled environment with a range of variables, including LED lighting, humidity, irrigation, CO2, and temperature.
When a grower has drawn conclusions based on a research system, Green Simplicity Concepts will then offer a suitable solution for production upscaling – whether through a single variable like dehumidification or lighting or through a fully controlled environment in an automated multilayered cultivation system without daylight. Green Simplicity Concepts will support the grower with the development and construction of an optimal cultivation system tailored to the needs of the crop.
“Green Simplicity is unique since the potential of a crop is determined together with the client, and the technology is designed specifically to help the client leverage this potential at scale,” said Anneke van de Geijn, CCO of GreenV. “Green Simplicity’s knowledge is very valuable and will significantly enrich the knowledge that our GreenV companies already possess. Soon, they will be able to develop and test innovative cultivation concepts with clients with a range of environmental variables, conditions, and yield requirements. And above all, we will be able to roll them out at scale more rapidly and more innovatively than ever before.”
Green Simplicity will continue to operate from its headquarters in Andijk with all its current employees.
