Company

The farm is hardware. Growing is software.

Founded in 2014, N.THING builds Physical AI food production infrastructure — vertical farms where AI drives the growing environment directly to produce the crop. We design, build, operate, grow and supply in-house, and aim to become a principal supplier of fresh produce in Korea and across Asia on the strength of data and digital infrastructure.

CUBE.ICHEON 외관
CUBE.ICHEON — Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, completed 2021

01Mission

We overcome the limits of food production and build sustainable agricultural infrastructure.

Agriculture is still tied to weather and land. The same seed planted the same way yields a different result each year, and that variance passes straight through to price and supply.

N.THING removes the variance by standardising the farm into a product. Wherever it is built, the same structure, the same operating system and the same grow programme run — and the result accumulates as data.

The conditions agriculture is under

4%
Share of the Korean workforce in farming

Down from 8.51% in 2000

7.5×
Injury rate in agriculture

Against the all-industry rate

300+
Annual deaths during farm work

A fatality rate 3.1× the average

Corporate profile

Legal name
N.THING Inc.
CEO
Hyeyeon Kim
Founded
10 January 2014
HQ and farm
2330-63 Gyeongchung-daero, Icheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
Business
Vertical farm construction · farm operations software · fresh produce
Funding
Series C · approx. $23M (₩32B+) raised from 16 institutions
IPO lead manager
Samsung Securities (appointed 2023)
Tech credit rating
TCB TI-2 (very strong), awarded twice
Intellectual property
53 rights — 2 core patents, 16 granted, 18 pending, 15 designs, 2 trade secrets

02What we do

The business runs on two axes

The two do not run separately. We grow crops on our own farms and supply grocery and food-service companies; the cultivation technique and operating data proven in that process become the solution we sell. More farms produce more data, and more data improves both sides at once.

Leafy greens ready for harvest

Fresh produce

Pesticide-free leafy greens grown on our own Icheon farm, supplied year-round to grocery retail, quick commerce, catering, food manufacturing and fine dining.

  • 365 days of stable supply
  • Cut and dispatched the same day
  • Pesticide-free and GAP certified
CUBE.ICHEON exterior at dusk

Vertical farm solutions

From the CUBE modular container farm to building-scale plant factories — turnkey delivery including design, construction and operations consulting.

  • CUBE — modular container farm
  • Giga Farm — building-scale plant factory
  • Farm OS — farm operations platform

03History

From 2014 to today

Starting from a mobile grow journal, through an IoT smart planter and a container farm prototype, to the plant factories we run now.

  1. 2014

    • N.THING Inc. founded (Google Special Award, Global K-Startup 2013)
    • Mobile grow journal launched — 30,000+ users
    • Selected for SparkLabs Accelerator Batch 4; first investment secured
  2. 2015

    • Venture company certification
    • IoT smart planter launched — $103k on Kickstarter
  3. 2016

    • IoT cultivation environment monitoring system developed
    • Joined the Seoul urban smart farm project
  4. 2017

    • Modular hydroponic cultivation kit launched
    • Container smart farm prototype developed
  5. 2018

    • First modular vertical farm built; cultivation testing begins (Seoul)
    • Series A — approx. $1.8M (₩2.5B)
  6. 2019

    • Modular vertical farm PoC in Yongin — 30 t/y, premium F&B supply
    • Successful hot-season cultivation trial in Abu Dhabi, UAE
  7. 2020

    • CES 2020 Best Innovation Award — Farm as a Product & Farming as a Service
    • Middle East PoC begins (CUBE X8, Abu Dhabi) · iF Design Award
    • Series B — approx. $7.2M (₩10B), with E-mart, Woowa Brothers and Eugene Investment
  8. 2021

    • Cultivation facility permit approved for modular vertical farms (Icheon City)
    • Selected for the multi-ministry smart farm innovation programme — approx. $5.8M (₩8B) scale
    • Production farm completed in Icheon — 100 t/y · approx. $11.6M (₩16B) bridge round
  9. 2022

    • CES 2022 Innovation Award, Sustainability — Decentralised Farming Solution
    • Icheon farm enters production; E-mart supply begins
    • Named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer
    • Vertical farm built for the KT&G Research Institute — ginseng and tobacco research
  10. 2023

    • TCB TI-2 (very strong) technology credit rating
    • Samsung Securities appointed IPO lead manager
    • Pesticide-free and GAP certification; first vertical farm to earn an EPD
    • Fresh produce supply to Baemin B mart begins
  11. 2024

    • Vertical farms won and delivered in Geochang and Miryang
    • SSG supply begins
    • Samsung Welstory viability PoC completed
    • Ottogi vertical farm and Indonesia ODA vertical farm won
  12. 2025

    • Strawberry seedling mass-production solution won — National Institute of Horticultural Science
    • Vertical farms delivered for Ottogi Jeyu, Jeonbuk National University and Gapyeong
    • Strategic investment from Samsung Venture Investment — Samsung Welstory-backed fund, ₩1B CB (December)

04Awards & Certifications

Recognition

  • 2020CES Best Innovation AwardFarm as a Product & Farming as a Service
  • 2022CES Innovation Award — SustainabilityDecentralised Farming Solution
  • 2022WEF Technology PioneerWorld Economic Forum
  • 2020iF Design AwardCUBE modular vertical farm design

Certifications

Pesticide-free certification
Eco-friendly cultivation
GAP certification
Good Agricultural Practices
Environmental Product Declaration
First vertical farm to certify, LCA with emart
TCB TI-2
Technology credit rating, very strong — awarded twice
emart Top ESG Partner
Sustainability assessment
Seedling and factory registration
Eligible for public tenders

05Vision

FEED THE WORLD

Growing into a company that feeds the world

Standardising the farm into a product means it can be built anywhere. Today it stands in Icheon and Yeoju — but with the same structure and the same operating system, it could stand in the middle of a city, in a desert, and one day beyond Earth.

Concept for N.THING Café & Farm Lab, a vertical farm inside an urban store
Concept rendering

Into the city

Into the city

Close the distance between growing and eating. Grow it where people eat, and the time, the cost and the waste that accumulate in distribution all fall away.

Concept for a modular vertical farm at a lunar base
Concept rendering

Beyond Earth

Beyond Earth

Growing a crop in a fully sealed environment, on nothing but water, light and nutrients, is the same problem that has to be solved off Earth. It is why we work on controlled environments now.

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