The Motley Fool recommends AppHarvest, Inc. 2023 Fortune Media IP Limited. Moser: Yeah. Below, we look at some of his most popular tweets. His final international was against Ireland in March 1993. Growing up in Appalachia, Jonathan Webb watched the slow decline of the coal industry firsthand. Who were the most active food and agriculture technology venture capital firms in 2022. Our team is built to scale and you look at where we're at today, we've launched our first facility. We're building these facilities here where we can access markets and get to about three-quarters of the U.S. on a day drive. You can also compare Dr. Webb with other orthopedic surgeons in Eau Claire to find the one that best suits your needs. I made the point at one point in regard to AppHarvest. Then we have to remember this isn't just a U.S. problem we're trying to solve. We have a phenomenal growing team. Invest better with The Motley Fool. My competition in Mexico, you have people getting paid $5 a day. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. He holds a legal degree from the University of Natal as well as the University of Cape Town. It is a non-profit organization that provides education and social services to low-income residents living in low-income apartments. But in its entirety not only do we have a problem we want to solve, we have a place in the world that wants to solve it with us., A crop care specialist carries boxes of tomatoes through a column of crops, pruning as she goes, I got to visit AppHarvest in November, and the sheer enthusiasm Webb has built in his staff is phenomenal. Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to see just more about AppHarvest to talk about all the stuff that you're trying to accomplish there. We've just been selling product for a matter of months. But I wanted to ask you before we do, the Root AI acquisition. For us, we're looking at metrics, how can we be more sustainable? We love DC, but we don't want to just be selling to the high-end restaurants in DC. Jonathan Webb, AppHarvest Inc: Profile and Biography The greenhouse, completed in 2020, yields up to 30 times the crops a traditional farm would, Webb said. Moser: That's going to do it for us this week, folks. We're one of four companies that are publicly traded that have both of those as a company. I don't want to keep you all day, but before we wrap it up, I did want to talk to you a little bit about ESG, environmental sustainability governance issues. I love that passion. could be sentient says Microsofts chatbot feels like watching the Shark Tank investor Kevin OLeary says a new generation of employee has never worked in an officeand its totally I cant afford to sell because I dont want to lose that rate: 3% mortgage rates will loom large over the U.S. CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Flipboard, and LinkedIn. Jonathan Webb is an actor with a large following on Twitter. Age : 37. Terms & Conditions. Moser: Well, you said it on the call. But for us, it's not a back-and-forth, it's not OK, well, I'm going to invest in an ESG company and I'm going to sacrifice profitability. "In less than Other AppHarvest investors include TV cook Martha Stewart, VC veteran Peter Thiel, We are about to plant our first crop in a 60-acre, controlled environment, chemical-free farm. We were just talking earlier and you mentioned how you're in the DC area, it was fortunate that we had Steve Case, the founder of AOL, and he fundraised the rest. You are speaking our language here at The Fool. Buy These 2 Stocks in 2023 and Hold for the Next Decade, Warren Buffett's Latest $2.9 Billion Buy Brings His Total Investment in This Stock to $66 Billion in 4 Years, Prediction: These 3 S&P 500 Stocks Will at Least Double in 7 Years, Join Over Half a Million Premium Members And Get More In-Depth Stock Guidance and Research, Copyright, Trademark and Patent Information. No. It made good logistical sense since Kentucky is within a days drive of 70% of the United States, plus there was an untapped labor force there ready and waiting to be hired. Let's force that rigor early. We have high demand for U.S.-grown and pesticide-free produce already, and when you combine that with the taste, color, and freshness of the AppHarvest model, on top of their social mission, it's driving our customers to ask for more." Which is important, because AppHarvest employs well over 300 people in its Morehead facility alone. If I were an investor, Id want my CEO on the ground with the team, not just in an office tower, he said. Jonathan was named one the Top 30 Most Influential Lawyers in Washingtonians 2018 list upon graduation. By the end of next year, we'll have five operating facilities. To me, at least, it feels like we are at the [] of a disruptive phase here, and a lot of that is thanks to technology. Brooke DiPalma is a producer and reporter for Yahoo Finance. He has become a prominent social media star. This is a BETA experience. I don't think anybody thinks of farming from this perspective. WebThe combined company will be led by Jonathan Webb, AppHarvests Founder & Chief Executive Officer. We pay every employee at AppHarvest a living wage. Learn More. If I can sell you a grocer, a product at around the same price, what are we solving for? Again, for their CEO, for their team to say to them not just about money, we can have more impact at scale with AppHarvest and achieve our mission and achieve our goals by working together. He has successfully completed over 200 operations using the Mako machine. AppHarvest A universal harvester robot at AppHarvest's Morehead, Kentucky greenhouse, AppHarvests crops are monitored for quality control 24/7 and harvested robotically, a labor-saving advancement that lets the staff treat farming almost like a manufacturing process. more. He completed a fellowship in Australia at North Sydney Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Centre and has worked in many high-profile clinics in the area. Well, you need water you need food, and you need energy. In the 1987 Rugby World Cup, Webb made his debut for England. Webb: Regulators are pounding on them, consumers are pounding on them. On this week's episode of Industry Focus: Wildcard, host Jason Moser chats with AppHarvest (APPH) founder and CEO Jonathan Webb about the growing opportunity in the agtech space, what makes AppHarvest unique, his vision of the future of farming, and much more. Thats why AI scares people, we know tech can be used just as coldly as anything else. When youre building tech for techs sake, you start to question what youre doing. Investors look at that, Peter Halt, AppHarvests newly appointed chief financial officer, told, Step aside, alt-protein: Bioplastics are the real agrifoodtech opportunity, The rise of the reused machines: Germanys E-Farm raises $5.3m Series A. I have a 16 and then going on 15-year-old daughters. My background was a part of building some of the largest solar projects in the U.S. David Lee, who joined us from Impossible Foods, joined impossible foods five years ago as their CFO and COO raised them nearly over $1 billion in the last five years and turned them into what was a boutique idea, into a mass-market product on store shelves. We're selling to Kroger, we're selling in fast food chains like Wendy's. If I'm a grocer and I'm saying U.S.-grown in a controlled environment we solve for all that. Running AppHarvest this way definitely creates extra workthe company even has facilitators who help employees navigate unexpected life events that might prevent them from coming to workbut its work Webb considers essential. Then we'll be able to give that data over to the grocer in more real-time. Again, if you look at the U.S. right now, this is a USDA statistic, nearly 40% of fresh fruit and vegetables end up in a landfill. Later, in 1993, he relocated to the United Kingdom, where he completed his LLM. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions. Webb is an expert in reconstructive and arthroscopic surgery. We're in that classic scenario of demand exceeding supply. He scored 296 points for England and played in two Rugby World Cups including the 1991 final. Webb is a consultant orthopaedic physician and a board member of World Rugby. Its flagship facility is a 60-acre indoor farm in Morehead, a town of 8,000 in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and it solely uses rainwater for its irrigation. It means being a little bit more upfront with your investors. How excited are you to bring that Root AI company in their leadership into your family? Jonathan Webb is the largest individual Appharvest shareholder, owning 20.54M shares representing 19.04% of the company. Earlier this year we did get listed on the Nasdaq. You may opt-out by. One, our geographic location. As I was listening, there was a quote, you said, "We are farmers and futurists." We want to be at Kroger. A specialist in knee surgery, Webb has performed countless surgeries in elite rugby union teams. But one thing we'd like to talk about is competitive advantage, what makes a company special? Cost basis and return based on previous market day close. Of course, the future is what really matters. It sounds like there's a lot of potential there. We talk about how, An Interview With AppHarvest Founder and CEO Jonathan Webb Purpose At Work: How AppHarvests On A Mission To Help AppHarvest This year alone, more than 50 SPACs have been formed in the US, collectively raising. Then by the end of the year in 2022, we'll have five facilities operating. No one else in America is doing something at that scale. Jonathan Webb Net Worth Public asset : 44,698,475 USD. We had 22 meetings and had almost 20 yeses. Very few passed on this deal and we eventually had to cancel meetings., Webb describes the SPAC transaction and PIPE financing experience as absolutely phenomenal.. We're feeding our country with people in Mexico who are making $5 a day. AppHarvest is an indoor farming company, so has massive greenhouses You have to judge yourself internally. What weve proven through a global pandemic is that we can build one of the largest facilities in the world on time, on budget, at a record pace.. In the 1992 Five Nations, England won the title back-to-back for the first time since 1924, thanks to Webbs brace. Sometimes, it can even get us a few steps closer to saving he world. At one point, we were thinking of putting up a billboard in front of several large tech company offices saying, Come build tech that matters, Webb said. It's so cool to think about what you guys are doing there. Most people every day are just concerned about can they put food on the table? They're not going to be solved in a month or a year or a quarter and we just want to build an organization that's going to be able to go toe-to-toe with the larger incumbents out there, and the best way to do that is to have that rigor of being a publicly traded company. Jonathan Webb poses with celebrity investor Martha Stewart and some of his signature tomatoes. We thought in order to build an organization that's going to be selling to the top grocers. That world will look pretty different from the one we live in now, but Lessing assured me that even as AI gets firmly integrated into agriculture, AppHarvests robots are, fundamentally collaborative. "Tech for good the consumer wants it. But I dont think thats adding value to the company, or looking out for our shareholders, he said. He was made a Fellow of the British Association of Surgery on the Knee (BASK), and has since taught many international and national athletes in sports medicine. Webb: We've been very fortunate that some of our investors and board members, Fidelity was the largest investor in our pipe during the public process, Jeff Ubben of Inclusive Capital, our Chief Sustainability Officer, Jackie Roberts came to us from the Carlyle Group, we're all very serious about this. Talk a little bit about what ESG means to you and some of the things that you've done, because corporately you set your business up to be able to account for some of that transparency and whatnot. AppHarvest is known for its approach to CEA, which Webb called the "third wave of sustainable infrastructure." I know that you're not the only one focused on controlled environment agriculture. Jonathan Webb: AppHarvest, we're based here in Central Appalachia and we're building some of the world's largest controlled environment agricultural facilities. Moser: It's impressive to think about the scope of what you are taking on because agriculture, farming, that's been something for so long, people just think, well, it's just what it's always been and we do it this way because that's the way we've always done it. In addition to his numerous social media fans, Jonathan Webb has also embraced a low-key approach to his career. AppHarvest reaffirms guidance on full-year 2021 net revenue of $21 million and Adjusted EBITDA of ($41) million provided during its Analyst Day presentation on December 15, 2020. If you want to know how wealthy he is, read on! Almost every company in the coal industry has gone bankrupt over the last 10 years. Jonathan Webb, Founder & CEO, AppHarvest We have a lot of work to do ahead of us over the years to come. There has been nothing more impactful on farming since that time, and now, it's AI robotics and using data to make decisions. We can have all the technological tools in the world, but at the end of the day we have to put people at the center of the equation.. Investors Dig Into AppHarvest | The Motley Fool - Nasdaq Many of our early investors have been very helpful with the company, and we knew that we are not just building one facility, we're building an organization that's going to go toe-to-toe with agriculture and food, globally. Its the single largest LED installation in the United States despite using constant passive solar, waters its plants using recycled rainwater, employs an integrated pest management system to avoid any pesticides, has a 30x higher production yield than traditional open field agriculture, and has the ever so modest goal of transforming the future of agriculture.