February 4, 2025
The future of agriculture is being shaped by groundbreaking innovations in controlled environment farming. In a recent episode of Insights Fusion, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lukas Bartusevičius, CEO of Freya Cultivation Systems, a Lithuania-based AgTech and DeepTech startup. Lukas and his team are pioneering next-generation greenhouse technology to make food production more efficient, sustainable, and scalable.
The conversation revealed how deep tech is changing modern agriculture, the challenges of scaling innovation in an industry as conservative as farming, and the mindset required to build a truly disruptive startup.
When most people think of greenhouses, they picture glass structures filled with plants soaking up natural sunlight. However, modern greenhouse farming is far more sophisticated. Greenhouses today are highly automated, data-driven facilities designed for maximum yield and efficiency.
Currently, commercial greenhouses provide about 20–25% of vegetables available in retail markets. They play a crucial role in global food security by enabling year-round production, but they come with major challenges—high capital expenditure (CAPEX), energy-intensive operations, and the need for constant technological upgrades.
Freya Cultivation Systems is tackling these challenges with a fundamental shift in how plants are grown and irrigated. Instead of traditional soil or hydroponics, their technology leverages aerosol-based irrigation, delivering water and nutrients in a way that significantly enhances efficiency and yield.
Freya's key innovation revolves around an ultrasonic irrigation system that turns water into mist, delivering nutrients directly to plant roots. This method, initially explored by NASA for growing food in zero gravity, allows for a three-dimensional growing structure rather than the traditional horizontal planting model.
As Lukas explains, plants thrive in mist. In nature, biologists have observed plants growing at the base of waterfalls, suspended in air, surviving purely on airborne moisture and nutrients. This insight led Freya to refine their system for real-world agricultural use.
Interestingly, Freya didn't start with greenhouses. Their original focus was on vertical farming—stacked indoor farms using artificial lighting. However, the economics of vertical farming proved problematic. While the concept was heavily hyped, real-world execution suffered due to high energy costs.
For example, in Europe, producing 1 kg of lettuce in a vertical farm costs around €12–15, making it nearly impossible to compete with greenhouse-grown produce. The economics simply didn’t work outside of very specific use cases (such as densely populated cities like Singapore or regions with extremely low energy costs like parts of the U.S.).
This realization forced Freya to pivot. Instead of fighting the limitations of vertical farms, they optimized their technology for greenhouses, where energy efficiency, automation, and large-scale food production already existed. This pivot unlocked massive market potential.
One of the most staggering insights Lukas shared was the sheer scale of the greenhouse industry. A single greenhouse complex can require a CAPEX investment of $10M–$20M, with expected returns over 15–25 years.
Despite the long investment cycles, modern greenhouses remain one of the best bets for scalable food production. Compared to vertical farms, greenhouses have:
Freya's technology provides a significant advantage in this space, as it allows growers to double their yield without increasing greenhouse footprint. This not only increases revenue per square meter but also improves profitability and sustainability.
While Freya's technology sounds like an obvious choice for growers, adoption is a major challenge. Agriculture is one of the most conservative industries, where change is slow and risk is heavily scrutinized. Farmers and greenhouse operators have decades of experience with traditional methods, and any deviation is met with skepticism.
Key hurdles Freya faces:
Despite these challenges, Freya has secured funding and is currently expanding into real-world greenhouse deployments.
Freya's journey also highlights a crucial lesson for deep tech startups—not all investors are the right investors.
Deep tech requires heavy R&D investment upfront, unlike B2B SaaS startups that can iterate rapidly. Lukas shared that early on, they wasted time pitching to generalist investors who didn't understand their model. Instead of looking for monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and short-term profits, deep tech investors focus on long-term technological moats and market dominance.
Freya’s fundraising success came after they aligned with deep tech investors, particularly in Lithuania, Finland, and the Nordics, where there is strong appetite for long-term, disruptive innovation.
Freya Cultivation Systems is pioneering a new era of greenhouse farming, one that doubles yield, reduces energy consumption, and increases profitability. Their ultrasonic irrigation system, inspired by NASA’s research, has the potential to reshape commercial agriculture globally.
However, as with any deep tech innovation, the road to adoption is filled with challenges—conservative growers, market regulations, and massive CapEx requirements. Yet, the economic and environmental benefits are too significant to ignore.
As Lukas aptly put it:
"In Excel, it’s an easy choice. In reality, you have to prove it works."
With real-world trials underway, Freya’s journey is one to watch closely.
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