Evansville startup wins HungerTech Innovation Challenge
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An Evansville-based startup that has developed an aeroponic smart garden appliance is the winner of this year’s HungerTech Innovation Challenge from AgriNovus Indiana.
Anu, formerly known as GroPod, took home the $25,000 prize, which was awarded at last week’s TechPoint Mira Awards gala in Indianapolis.
The challenge is a four-week accelerator to support entrepreneurs to create businesses that work to ensure increased and equitable food distribution in an environmentally sustainable and economically viable way.
“HungerTech was created to inspire innovation that durably addresses the gap that exists between food supply and food demand,” AgriNovus CEO Mitch Frazier said in a news release. “Anu’s technology has potential to bring the production and availability of healthy foods to consumers across the country and around the world.”
Anu’s device is a dishwasher-sized appliance that uses 100% compostable aeroponic seed pods to grow produce inside the home. The company has created a seed pod subscription service for customers as well.
“Increased access to more nutritious and flavorful food is a principle upon which Anu was founded,” said co-founder and CEO Scott Massey. “Participating in the HungerTech Innovation Challenge creates new opportunities to educate and empower consumers to sustainably grow Pure Produce that ultimately solves one of the most critical challenges of our time: food insecurity.”
Winning the challenge is the latest accolade for Massey and Anu. On Wednesday, the Purdue Research Foundation announced Anu has received a nearly $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Technology Enhancement for Commercial Partnerships program to accelerate the manufacturing of its seed pods.
The company raised more than $6 million in funding since its founding, including a $200,000 Indiana Manufacturing Readiness Grant from by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. last August.
Massey earlier this year was also named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in the Manufacturing and Industry category.
Recently, Massey has been taking the technology to Africa to address food insecurity in the Kingdom of Lesotho, with the goal of expanding efforts across the continent.
We’ll have more on Massey’s efforts in Lesotho in a future edition of the Evansville Region Report newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter by clicking here.