Seedsheet, a Vermont-based agri-tech company, just made it to the eighth season of Shark Tank. The business accepted a US$500,000 offer from Shark Tank cast member Lori Greiner.
Founder and CEO Cam MacKugler cooked up the idea for Seedsheet while house-sitting on his co-worker’s 80-acre dairy farm. MacKugler’s background in architecture helped him realize that combining architecture and agriculture could help encourage city-dwellers to pursue farming. Seedsheet is a malleable sheet that has seeds already embedded in the fabric. The sheet can be rolled out on soil with minimal fuss in a matter of seconds, making planting a garden almost as easy as making your bed.
Seedsheet allows users to program their own virtual gardens online and then ships ready-made-gardens directly their homes. Users can choose their garden variety online by looking through options like “Caprese,” “Tacos,” or “Design Your Own.” The kits only require soil and water, and, according to MacKugler, can “help you put a Vermont Farm on your fire escape, stoop, patio, yard or rooftop.” The company’s mission is to promote better food transparency and availability by making it easy to grow food at home.
The sheets come pre-loaded with non-GMO seeds and range from US$15 to US$50. They are made with a weed-resistant fabric, which means the personalized gardens require no weeding.
Seedsheet launched as a campaign on Kickstarter and spread rapidly in its first 12 months. You can find Seedsheet at Home Depot or online.
Click here to watch Seedsheet’s Shark Tank episode, which aired on April 7 at 9pm EST.
