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Shares of AppHarvest Inc., the first greenhouse company to go public via reverse IPO, were up 15% on Monday.
The company APPH, +20.72%, whose goal is to operate a dozen greenhouses by 2025, is focused on producing tomatoes, berries, leafy greens, and cucumbers.
“We want to build a better food company, one that is leveraging mother nature,” AppHarvest President David Lee told MarketWatch shortly after the company started trading on Nasdaq. Lee recently left Impossible Foods Inc. as chief financial officer to join AppHarvest.
In September, AppHarvest and Novus Capital Corp., NOVS, +20.72%, a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company, announced a deal to merge that values the next-generation greenhouse owner and operator at about $500 million before proceeds. To date, AppHarvest has raised $475 million in capital.
The company projects it will bring in $21 million in net revenue from 60 acres of capacity in 2021. It also sees a loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, of $41 million next year.
Last month, AppHarvest announced its first-ever harvest of beefsteak tomatoes from its 60-acre Morehead, Ky., flagship indoor farm. The crop is being shipped to select national retailers Kroger Co. KR, -1.51%, Walmart Inc. WMT, -0.43%, Publix Super Markets Inc., K-VA-T Food Stores Inc., and Meijer Inc.
