Crocus Labs Germany

This interview details Crocus Labs, an indoor farming technology company based in Germany. The interview is with Dr. Prash Makaram, CEO of Crocus Labs.

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What is the origin story of Crocus Labs?

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It all started in 2019 when Dr. Prash Makaram was brainstorming with his friend from MIT on the best application for the full spectrum and hyper energy efficient LED technology innovation they had access to. 

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With controlled environment agriculture reaching its popularity, the application case was clear: enabling the future of agriculture to move beyond leafy greens into nutritional crops and bring impact to the access to fresh food in the parts of the world where traditional agriculture is not possible. 

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What are some of the biggest challenges facing Crocus Labs in the future?

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Today we see CEA facing challenges driven by energy price increases and overall struggles in the financial markets. This, on one hand, makes it more complicated to have a broader reach to the commercial players in Europe. At the same time it shows the importance and the size of the impact our solution can bring.

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What is unique about Crocus Labs compared to competitors?

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We are building our product from its core with the horticulture use case in mind - from our LED chips to hardware to software. This brings an unprecedented gain in energy efficiency. We are a fully European company leveraging the high standards of manufacturing and quality.

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How do you measure the impact of your company so far? (Revenue, Employees, Customer Quantity, Production Volume) etc?

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Since we got the EIC (European Innovation Council) grant and closed our seed round in Q3 2022, we have hired the team of engineers - truly diverse: with 10 FTEs and 4 part time/flex employes we are at 8 nationalities. Our core product metric is the energy efficiency gained with the technology that reduces the need in energy consumption. 

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What have you learned that you wish you knew when you joined or started the company?

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It may sound obvious, but, always plan for more time - developing technology takes time, team work , relationship building and communication. You cannot overcommunicate - would be the second learning, we are transparent with our customers about what our technology can do today, what we are developing in our product roadmap and this helps with having insightful conversations. 

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How can people connect with you or learn more about Crocus Labs?

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The official website of Crocus Labs would be a good place to start. There, people can learn more about the company. People can also contact via email info@crocuslabs.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

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