Ideapedia

• Fertilizer

Patented Technology:
California Safe Soil manufacturing technology mechanically grinds, heat, and enzymatically digest (organic) food waste into a low-cost, nutrient-rich fertilizer that increases crop yield.

Flagship Product:
Harvest-to-Harvest™ is a liquid fertilizer and soil amendment recycled from food from supermarkets, which provides active organic matter that stimulate soil fertility.

Discovered At:

• Local technology startup competition, Capitalize, hosted by Velocity Venture Capital and the Sacramento Kings, where CSS emerged as 1 of 4 finalists and secure $5,000 investment from Kings Chairman Vivek Ranadive. 

• A prestigious competition, Thrive Accelerator, from Silicon Valley Group and Forbes Magazine, designed to incentivize smart farming, where CSS was chosen as 1 of 10 finalists and presented the Sustainability Award.

• Accelerator program, Imagine H2O, which recognizes and rewards firms that offer entrepreneurial solutions to water challenges, where CSS is the winner of the Growth Stage competition category. 

Goals:
(1) Scale up and commercialize CSS technology; build processing plants across the country
(2) Promote change in existing consumer behavior; farmers to adopt the technology and grocery stores to use the service
(3) Reduce trash headed to landfills and the use of toxic / chemical fertilizers.
(4) Significantly solve the food waste crisis

Differentiation / USP:
Business model: 
Sustainable and Financially Viable Cycle

Grocery Stores / Retailers:
Grocery stores typically pay between $70 and $120 a ton to have their food waste hauled away to landfills. For a smaller pick-up fee, supermarkets working with CSS become waste free, leading to more hygienic facilities. The process does not produce any bad smells or wastes, thus CSS is permitted in urban areas, further aiding in logistics.

Farmers:
Homogenized H2H liquid fertilizer binds with soil, so it does not run off into rivers like chemical treatments during irrigation. Farmers make more produce and earn water savings. Farmers also save manpower costs associated with fertilizer application - the liquid can be applied to crops through irrigation drip lines, which saves farmers to disk soil required for traditional compost material.

Compost: 
CSS process capture nutritional value 720 times more efficient than traditional composting. Traditional composting takes 3 months or more where nutritional value can be lost in the lengthy decomposition process, while CSS process takes only 3 hours.

Environment: 
Unlike chemical fertilizers with high levels of nitrate which contaminates the soil and water, Harvest-to-Harvest (H2H) is an alternative that's non chemical and has benefits for the environment.

Experiment:

Research:

UC Davis, one of the world's leading cross-displinary research and teaching institution

Western Growers Association and other growers

Field Trial:

Farmers throughout the Central Valley 

3 Years of Greenhouse trials / Data analysis / Regulatory Tests:
UC Davis College of Agriculture and Environmental Science, together with Associate Dean to test the productivity of H2H on over 40 farms and numerous agricultural products in California.

Fundraising:
Retail Sales: 
In talks with retailers to sell his system as a home, lawn and garden product.

Personal Contacts:
With his background in investment banking, energy and infrastructure, Morash was able to bring aboard 25 partners mostly through personal contacts. He also presented to various angel networks, and has had three rounds of investor opportunities so far.

Crowdfunding Sites:
To fundraise $6 million of the needed capital, California Safe Soil has turned to a new resource for investment: equity crowdfunding. AgFunder, an online investment marketplace for agriculture and agritech, is similar to crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter, but with a key difference: Those who contribute money get ownership stakes in return.

Law: 
JOBS Act, known as the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, is a law intended to encourage funding of small businesses by easing various securities regulations, one of which includes democratizing equity crowdfunding. This makes Agfunder possible as it cleared some regulatory hurdles allowing them to provide funding so far to eight companies.

Competitions: 
Annual business innovation competitions held by non-profits e.g. Imagine H20 that support market-based solutions to water challenges allow companies to compete for 1) cash, 2) in-kind service and access to beta customers and pilot partners featuring commercial growers and food processors
.
Winners, finalists or runner-ups also get to pitch to panels of judges from finance and technology companies, that includes leading industry investors and experts from companies including district official who can be a potential board member! They get to earn early-stage financing in the water sector as well as market insight, connections and business resources to scale up their business.

They also get to be expose in showcasing event and featured in press e.g. Entrepreneur Magazine.

Holding company:
One who buy and own the shares of other companies, in this case, $20 Million & Change, a venture capital fund launched by Patagonia Works, which invests in environmentally and socially responsible grassroots organisations and start-ups.

Investor Rating:
Currently, California Safe Soil maintains the highest GIIRS 5 Star Investor Rating, the gold standard for measurement in impact investing, which provide them the infrastructure and help them attract the customers, talent, and capital to scale.

Angel Financing (Rounds): 
An angel investor who is an affluent individual who provides capital for a start-up company in exchange for an equity ownership interest.

CrunchBase:
Crunch Base, is a leading platform to discover innovative startup companies and the people behind them. The data set is used by millions of entrepreneurs, investors and analysts...

Use of Funding:

• Move beyond its pilot (trial) phase of development; constructing a new manufacturing plant / facility at McClellan Business Park, Sacramento;
• Recycle ten thousand more tons of food waste per annum to produce its H2H fertilizer; 
• Expanding its supermarket client base;
• Develop specialized formulas of H2H for specific crops and farming operations

Expertise:
Kamine Development Corporation (KDC), a family investment office that invest in sustainability and environmentally progressive technologies and individuals who help enhanced the world. KDC has financed, owned and operated over $3.5 billion in infrastructure across the nation, partnering with numerous Fortune 100 companies in telecom, natural gas, solar energy and agriculture.

Other than financial expertise, KDC will use their successful business experience and proven entrepreneurial vision to scale and commercialize California Safe Soil's technology.

CSS granted license of the technology to KDC in order to capitalize on the first mover advantage and get the H2H product to the market ASAP. How? KDC has secured a contract with one of the largest regional supermarkets to collect 30,000 tons of fresh food waste per year for the next 10 years.

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