French dairy giant Danone has taken part in a US$28m investment round in local pesticide-free fruits and vegetable business Agricool.

The investment was made through its Danone Manifesto Ventures venture fund arm.

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Urban farming business Agricool said the investment will allow it to pursue its ambition to make “excellent, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables accessible to all”.

The other investors in the round included Bpifrance Large Venture Fund, French businessman Antoine Arnault via Marbeuf Capital, Docker co-founder Solomon Hykes, as well as a dozen other ‘business angels’.

Existing investors – which include venture-capital funds Daphni and XAnge, Xavier Niel via the Kima Ventures venture-capital firm and Henri Seydoux, the founder of civil-drone business Parrot – also participated in the new funding round.

In the past three years, Agricool’s teams have developed a technology to grow local, healthy fruits and vegetables more productively and within small and controlled spaces, known as “Cooltainers” (recycled shipping containers transformed into urban farms).

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Agricool said that, thanks to this new funding round, it will be able to confirm its role in the development of this new type of agriculture, while positioning itself as a key player in the segment of vertical farming in France and worldwide.

It said it plans to multiply production by a hundredfold by 2021, in Paris first, then internationally starting with Dubai, where a container has already been installed.

Agricool has ambitions to employ 200 people by 2021.

See just-food’s guide: Big Food’s Stake in the Future – In-House Venture Capital Funds