Babylon raises $8M for its self-contained vertical farming system

The Richmond, Virginia-based startup produces the Galleri, a large $15,000 wall appliance designed to grow more than 50 different plant varieties for on-site harvest. The system is obviously price-prohibitive for most individuals at the moment; accordingly, the company is currently focused on food service for verticals like healthcare, education and the corporate world. Anyone who has a desire for hyper-local produce (and a nice visual to boot).Today Babylon is announcing an $8 million Series A, led by Venture South. CEO Alexander Olesen tells TechCrunch that the money will go toward accelerating production and marketing the solution, as the company looks to expand its install base.We have designed the BabylonIQ platform to manage a distributed fleet of vertical farms at scale, says Olesen. The proprietary platform weve developed automatically controls growing conditions, scheduling planting/harvesting and reordering supplies while we are able to conduct real-time analysis of plant health and predictive maintenance on our fleet.