Surna

This interview details Surna, an indoor farming company based in the United States. The interview is with Brandy Keen, Co-founder & Senior Technical Advisor at Surna.

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What is the origin story of Surna?

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Surna Cultivation Technologies was founded in 2006 as Hydro Innovations, to serve the indoor cultivation industry as it existed at the time. Our founders were hobby gardeners with backgrounds in commercial construction and the automotive and semiconductor industries, who very quickly identified the inefficiencies in the “normal” way of maintaining the grow room climate in the industry’s early days.

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Our initial reason for entering the industry was to offer cultivators affordable and common sense ways to mitigate the extreme heat produced by the HID lighting that was common practice in the industry at that time, which we did successfully, and then we evolved from there. The industry has changed pretty dramatically in the 18 years or so since our founding, as have we.

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Over the years we expanded to offer architectural and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design, in addition to large-scale climate control systems, benching and racking, and other products to the industry, but the core reasons for our existence then, and our existence now, remain the same: to deliver operational and resource efficiency to cultivators through thoughtful facility design, common sense application of technology, and with the cultivator’s bottom line always staying top of mind.

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What are some of the biggest challenges facing Surna in the future? 

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Surna’s biggest challenge is the uncertainty facing the indoor cultivation market, particularly in cannabis but also in food. The cannabis industry is experiencing a bit of a correction, where we find that some of the early adopting states with limited barriers to entry were likely overbuilt, resulting in failure of some of those businesses, which limits investment in new states by giving investors pause.

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Cannabis is still a good bet, but the location and the local market must be carefully analyzed and the cultivation operators must be fully vetted, which is a bit of a departure from the investment free-for-all that took place during the 2010s. There are also a number of actions the federal government could take that would be energizing to the cannabis industry, starting with banking. Indoor food producers have really struggled with managing the initial capital expense and ongoing operating costs against the price that their market will tolerate, which has caused some financial upheaval for the early adopters there. We remain confident that both industries will find their footing and that we’ll be well-positioned to help once they do.

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What is unique about Surna compared to competitors? 

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Apart from the vast experience we have in the cultivation space (having worked with hundreds and hundreds of cultivators over the course of our nearly two decades in business), our service offering is also differentiated by direct, applied experience with the equipment that we specify in our designs. In mechanical design for instance, we’re able to speak with applied experience around the pros and cons of using different types of technologies, inclusive of cost, before we ever start a design, so there are no surprises when a project goes out to bid.

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Our architectural designs are collaborative, with schematics based on having seen and been involved with countless other facilities so we know what works and what doesn’t. We’ve seen how different types of systems operate in real-time by monitoring through our Sentry IQ controls system, and participated in the maintenance of different types of systems applied in different facilities. This direct, applied, hands-on experience with so many different cultivation practices, and so many different climate control approaches, gives us a unique ability to analyze a customer’s specific circumstance and make design recommendations that best meet the client’s needs.

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What are some other relevant metrics of the company (amount of existing projects / customers, team size, etc.)?

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Because we are primarily a service provider, with very little manufacturing, we’re able to do a lot with a relatively small team. We have 10 full-time employees consisting primarily of subject matter experts, engineers, and project managers, in addition to multiple partner architects, engineers, and equipment manufacturers. To date, we’ve worked with approximately 900 cultivators with varying degrees of engagement, and have completed engineering designs and implementation of mechanical systems for over 250 commercial cultivators.

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What are some goals in 2024 and beyond for Surna?

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We will continue to strive to be the absolute best at what we do, constantly evaluating our own performance and improving with every project, both by refining our own processes and becoming experts on relevant new technologies for our clients.

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How can people connect with you or learn more about Surna?

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You can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, on our website at www.surna.com (where our blog has loads of really valuable information, where you can download free white papers, and where we really do respond to every “contact us” submitted), or you can email us at info@surna.com.

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