From pea to active pharmaceutical ingredient: OrbiFarm revolutionizes global food and drug production
New Veganz Group subsidiary with 40 million valuation - investor entry expected in Q2/2025
Veganz Group AG founded OrbiFarm GmbH on April 10, 2025 in order to leverage hidden reserves within the company. The purpose of the company is the research, development, patenting, production, distribution and licensing of indoor farming technologies. The focus is on the cultivation of protein plants and medicinal plants on an industrial scale. These include peas, amaranth, quinoa, hemp and okra, as well as tobacco plants (insulin production) and other medicinal plants.
Following the planned entry of a strategic investor with an investment of EUR 10.0 million, Veganz Group AG will still hold a majority stake of 74.9 percent in OrbiFarm. The new investor will receive a blocking minority of 25.1 percent.
The worldwide exclusive licenses of the Fraunhofer patents for the OrbiLoop® and OrbiPlant® technology, the biopatents for the seeds and plants as well as the brand and OrbiFarm LLC, based in Dubai, which acts as the sales organization for the MENA region, will be transferred from Veganz Group AG to OrbiFarm. OrbiFarm will finance the construction of a prototype facility at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME ("Fraunhofer Institute") in Aachen and launch initial projects to build farms for medicinal plants and protein products.
With the innovative OrbiFarm® technology platform, high-quality staple foods and medicinal plants can be cultivated in a hall anywhere in the world, regardless of climatic and environmental influences, in a cost-effective and economically viable way (vertical indoor farming).
The results of the OrbiFarm® cultivation trials with pea plants at the Fraunhofer Institute were very successful in terms of yield, quality, reproducibility, safety and cost-effectiveness. The yield was up to 36 times higher than with conventional cultivation and could be further optimized by CO2 fumigation, for example.
Thanks to the entry of a new shareholder in OrbiFarm, the construction of the first industrial-scale plant can be financed. Construction is planned at the site of the Fraunhofer Institute in Aachen. It will provide a suitable building for this purpose. Körber Technologies GmbH is responsible for the design and production.
Plants for pharmaceutical use as well as alternative protein plants for the first customers will be grown at this site. To date, there are already seven (7) concrete projects for the construction of OrbiFarm plants from all over the world.
OrbiFarm was set up as a lean licensing model and will not build or operate any plants itself. The design, production, construction and maintenance will be carried out by Körber Technologies GmbH, which currently has 13,000 employees worldwide. The license fees are calculated both on the sale of the OrbiFarm systems and on the operators' annual revenue.
In 2024, the market for alternative proteins was estimated at USD 18.58 billion. This market is expected to grow to USD 74.67 billion by 2037. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is around 11.2% in the forecast period 2025 - 2037.
Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.
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