Albotherm secures £500k Innovate funding to scale shading for commercial greenhouses

By Nicky Godding

11 August 2023

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The Business Magazine article image for: Albotherm secures £500k Innovate funding to scale shading for commercial greenhouses

Molly Allington, CEO Albotherm with Dr Sian Fussell, Chief Technology Officer

Albotherm, the Bristol-based advanced materials agritech and construction startup, has been awarded a £500,000 grant from Innovate UK to spearhead a groundbreaking project in collaboration with glass manufacturer Pilkington, and salad and produce growers Flavourfresh and Vitacress.

This latest funding builds on the £1.6M seed investment round announced announced in June. That investment was led by Green Angel Syndicate and supported by Oxford Innovation Finance through its angel platform OION, Bristol Private Equity Club (BPEC), Cambridge Angels, Cambridge Agritech, and Science Angels Syndicate (SAS).

Albotherm has developed a smart shade coating that is transparent in cold weather but automatically converts to opaque in hot weather to provide on-demand shade, optimising crop growing conditions, and reducing solar overheating. Albotherm says its technology is vital in supporting the planet's requirement to produce 50 per cent more food by 2050 to feed a global population reaching nearly 10 billion. This need is compounded as available arable land has decreased by 30 per cent in the last 40 years due to the effects of urbanisation and climate change. The world's changing climate also brings more unpredictable weather conditions, which can cause stress to the crop, resulting in a 25 per cent decrease in yield.

As Albotherm’s product is responsive to changing temperature it ensures that the greenhouse environment remains optimised for growth, maximising crop production and securing the global food supply in a changing climate. In commercial greenhouses, their technology allows crops to benefit from the early morning and evening light, while being protected from the heat of the midday sun, boosting overall light levels by 18% and demonstrating a 34% increase in crop yield compared to standard shading approaches.

This ambitious project, which began in May, has received funding from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) as part of the Farming Innovation Pathways Grant, administered by Innovate UK. The aim is to address the pressing need for sustainable solutions in the horticulture sector by maximising energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact.

The project aims to develop and test Albotherm’s innovative smart coatings, with a focus on the optimisation and scale up of their retrofit temperature-responsive shade coating for commercial greenhouses. Initial testing is scheduled to commence in Spring 2024 in partnership with Flavourfresh and Vitacress, two of the UK’s leading soft fruit and culinary herb growers, with commercial scale crop trials.

Albotherm is also partnering with world leading glass manufacturer Pilkington to develop a glass coating for new greenhouse construction that can be produced using Pilkington’s large area manufacturing processes. This new product will have a longer lifetime, maximising the environmental benefit of Albotherm’s technology and allow access to a wider market opportunity in industrial glazing.

Albotherm has also benefited from growth support from Innovate UK EDGE, delivered by Innovation and Growth Specialist, Marc Rambaud. Innovation UK Edge is the UK innovation agency’s resource for innovative businesses from any sector who are ambitious to grow further and scale.

“Marc and the team at Innovate UK EDGE have helped us to build a really strong framework across areas like design, HR, internationalisation and funding and finance,” says Molly Allington, CEO of Albotherm.

“It’s been great to have both the general support from Marc, and to also work with specialist like Adele Reynolds who helped us to revamp our funding strategy and secure our most recent grant.”

"We are excited to receive the Innovate UK grant and to collaborate with leaders in the UK horticulture industry. We are honoured to have the support of Flavourfresh, Vitacress, and Pilkington on this ground-breaking project and we look forward to contributing to a more sustainable future for the horticultural industry."

Anna Colley, Lead Technologist at Pilkington Technology Management Limited, said: “We are continually developing the next generation of glass products and have recently launched our Pilkington Botanical glass range focused on optimising greenhouse farming. We are very much looking forward to working with Albotherm and exploring the potential of combining their smart shade coating with our glass technology as a potential step towards more dynamic systems for combating temperature variations in Greenhouses.”

Andy Roe, Production Manager at Flavourfresh added: “This Albotherm project is exactly why British horticulture is number one in the world. Flavourfresh are so excited to be partnering with Albotherm on such an incredible and innovative concept. The outcome of this work will be so beneficial to all growers across the sector. It's projects like this that make our jobs so stimulating and exciting for future challenges.”

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.