urban-gro, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries (urban-gro) is an integrated professional services and construction design-build company.
The company’s business focuses primarily on providing fee-based knowledge-based services, as well as the value-added reselling of equipment. The company derives income from its ability to generate revenue from the company’s clients through the billing of the company’s employees’ time spent on client projects. The company offers value-added architectural, en...
urban-gro, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries (urban-gro) is an integrated professional services and construction design-build company.
The company’s business focuses primarily on providing fee-based knowledge-based services, as well as the value-added reselling of equipment. The company derives income from its ability to generate revenue from the company’s clients through the billing of the company’s employees’ time spent on client projects. The company offers value-added architectural, engineering, systems procurement and integration, and construction design-build solutions to customers operating in the controlled environment agriculture (‘CEA’) and industrial and other commercial (‘Commercial’) sectors. The company’s evolution, both organically and through the acquisition of engineering, architecture, and construction management firms has enabled the company to successfully diversify into the commercial sectors of the clients the company serves, as well as the capabilities the company offers, which has helped insulate the company’s business from any one sector. Even with this successful diversification, the company’s main focus and value-add has always been and remains in providing solutions to the company’s CEA clients, where the company has experience and expertise in designing, engineering, building, and integrating complex environmental equipment systems into indoor CEA cultivation and retail facilities, and then providing ongoing maintenance, training, and support services to those same facilities.
For the company’s CEA clients in particular, the company create high-performance indoor cultivation facilities to grow specialty crops, including cannabis as well as produce such as leafy greens, vegetables, herbs and berries. The company also provides design-build solutions for its CEA clients' retail facilities. The company helps its clients achieve operational efficiency and economic advantages through a full spectrum of professional services and programs focused on facility optimization and environmental health which establish facilities that allow clients to manage, operate and perform at the highest level throughout their entire cultivation lifecycle once they are up and running. For these CEA clients, the company’s team provides services to meet the most stringent regulatory environments, whether they are energy efficiency goals, Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (‘GACP’), or Good Manufacturing Practice (‘GMP’) and/or European Medicine Agency EU GMP (‘EU/GMP’) certification.
Solutions
Since commencing business in March 2014, the company has expanded its ongoing operations across North America and Europe while diversifying the company’s services offerings organically and through acquisitions into full design-build solutions by adding design, engineering, construction, and construction-management services, introducing new equipment solutions, products and services, and successfully diversifying into several additional commercial sectors beyond cannabis-focused CEA, including produce-focused CEA; or vertical farming, healthcare, industrial, commercial packaged goods (‘CPG’), and retail. The company is a trusted partner and adviser to its clients and provides value to its clients regardless of the sector in which they sit or solution for which they are utilizing the company.
The company’s design-build solution, when focused on indoor CEA, offers an integrated suite of in-house services and equipment systems that generally fall within the following categories:
Service Solutions:
Architectural Design, Engineering, and Construction Services – A comprehensive collection of services including Pre-Construction Services; Cultivation Space Programming (‘CSP’); Architectural Design and Interior Design; Engineering; Integrated Cultivation Design (‘ICD’); Owner's Representative Services / Construction Management (‘CM’); and General Contracting (‘GC’).
Additional Service Offerings, including Facility and Equipment Commissioning Services; gro-care Crop and Asset Protection Services including Training Services, Equipment Maintenance Services, Asset Protection Program, and an Interactive Online Operating Support System (‘OSS’) for gro-care and client document delivery and project management; and Property Condition Assessment (‘PCA’).
Integrated Equipment Systems Solutions:
Design, Source, and Integration of Complex Environmental Equipment Systems including Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (‘HVAC’) solutions, Environmental Controls, Fertigation, and Irrigation Distribution.
Value-Added Reselling (‘VAR’) of Cultivation Equipment Systems.
Strategic Vendor Relationships with Premier Manufacturers.
Service Solutions
Architectural Design, Engineering, and Construction Services
The company generates revenue by providing its clients with design-build service offerings that include architectural, interior, and engineering design, construction and construction management, as well as services for the operational stages of the facility. The company’s in-house architectural, interior design, engineering, construction and cultivation design services integrate design with pre-construction services and thereby reduce project schedule and capital investments.
Pre-Construction Services include providing a forecast summary of what it will take to get a high-performance facility built, giving initial indication and detailed analysis of budget, timeline/schedule, and potential large decision impacts including value analysis and value engineering options.
CSP is an early-stage engagement with stakeholders that provides an optimized basis of design including the interaction of people, plants, and processes. The output of CSP provides an optimized analysis of spatial needs based on stipulated criteria and can accelerate construction and regulatory approval paths, save stakeholders money and time, and enable a process-driven decision-making approach.
Architectural Design is the implementation of a defined process from development of vision to built environment. Architecture includes the integration and coordination of all project required disciplines such as civil, landscape, structural, mechanical, plumbing and electrical engineering, fire protection, security, interior design, and other specialty disciplines. The company’s services are built around an integrated design process focused on the collaborative development of client-driven solutions. Specific to the CEA industry, the company’s team’s understanding of the relationship between people, plants, and process helps clients maximize profits and efficiencies while minimizing capital investments, and operational and maintenance costs.
Interior Design involves branding and development of the interior aesthetic vision. The company’s collaborative and integrated approach from the company’s team begins with inspiration boards focused on understanding the client’s aesthetic desires. Interior design is holistic and thereby includes all aspects of the building interiors from full branding to the selection and design of all finishes and interior systems. Common discussions beyond aesthetics include the cost, durability, and maintainability of systems presented.
Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (‘MEP’) engineering design focuses on the entire building, not just the cultivation space, which in turn eliminates the ‘gap’ between cultivation systems and the building systems. The company provides engineered construction contract documents for mechanical, HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems required for the building permits necessary to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy. The company’s team evaluates client capabilities, needs, desires, and budget in the development of recommended systems through a client-focused collaborative process culminating in the delivery of high-performance and low-maintenance systems.
ICD creates cultivation space-focused design layouts that integrate climate control, fertigation, benching, air flow, and lighting. The company’s ICD team’s deep understanding of cultivation systems provides the foundation for ensuring optimal space utilization as they utilize an integrated and collaborative design process focused on understanding, vetting, and implementing the client’s vision. Products utilized in the ICD’s basis-of-design ensures the integration of high-quality systems and product performance. These detailed ICD plans are taken through the construction document stage and are leveraged by the company’s clients to efficiently solicit contractor bids.
Construction and Construction Management provides all the additional necessary parts to deliver the company’s clients' projects, from the initial estimate and bid process, to subcontractor selection, and management of all construction details. The company’s skilled project managers, specialized within the company’s clients' sectors, maintain knowledgeable open lines of communication with both clients, onsite superintendents, and internal and external construction partners to manage expectations, costs and schedules.
Additional Service Offerings
The company’s Facility and Equipment Commissioning Services provide a cultivation-level view of the complex system made up by each piece of equipment and ensures systems are running properly. Many of the current service options available to CEA cultivation clients are isolated to vendors providing post-sale service for a single piece of equipment. The company’s team confirms contractors and specialty trades are installing systems to the design intent allowing for rapid installation, continuous process improvement, and increased revenue for the company’s clients.
gro-care is a highly differentiated service offering that provides a combination of CEA cultivation facility commissioning and an asset protection program through training, equipment maintenance, on-demand support, standard operating procedures (‘SOP’), and a client-specific OSS that acts as an online hub for clients’ ongoing services. Combined, this solution focuses on the troubleshooting, tuning, and support of a myriad of cultivation systems and equipment while further providing guidance for client interactions with tradespeople working on HVAC, electrical, and plumbing in the facility on an ongoing basis.
The company’s PCA offering provides value to all clients regardless of sector, but also adds unique value for the company’s clients in the CEA sector. PCA includes researching historical records of the building as related to code issues, field documentation of existing conditions, a report of findings with materials systems categorized by condition, and a capital expenditure report for correction of any deficiencies. For the company’s clients in the CEA sector, the company’s PCA offering provides analysis of components specifically within CEA facilities, both with an eye towards critical cultivation and manufacturing systems, as well as helping clients understand a facility's ability to meet any state regulations that may have evolved such as adherence to standards such as Current Good Manufacturing Practices (‘cGMP’), EU-GMP, and/or World Health Organization guidelines on GACP. PCA provides necessary data for clients to understand options for optimizing operational performance, understanding deficiencies, and property preparing for necessary capital expenditures.
Integrated Equipment Solutions
While the company’s engineers play an integral part in the design of most of the complex equipment systems that are then integrated into a CEA facility, the company also provides consultative reselling of more common solutions that the company integrates into the overall design. For CEA, the environmental goal is to maintain a stable and consistent vapor pressure deficit (‘VPD’) according to the client’s priorities through environmental control of relative humidity and temperature during all stages of growth. There are four main variables in CEA that affect plant growth (and can impact VPD): (i) water and nutrients; (ii) environmental control; (iii) CO2; and (iv) lighting. The complex equipment systems that the company designs and procures for the company’s clients play an important role in helping control and maintain the cultivation facility's environment for plants.
Design, Source, and Integration of Complex Environmental Equipment Systems
Complex Environment Systems for CEA include environmental controls, fertigation and irrigation distribution, a complete line of water treatment and wastewater reclamation systems, and HVAC equipment systems.
As related to systems and equipment, the most significant and influential variable within a CEA facility is the ability to control and maintain the cultivation environment. This is accomplished through the integration of mechanical systems (HVAC), lighting, air movement systems, irrigation systems, and environmental controls. Maintaining a consistent desired temperature and humidity level within the cultivation spaces ensures less stress on plants. urban-gro designs these systems to fit within the company’s clients' budgets and provides the company’s clients' facilities a more stable environment to maximize plant health and yields, minimize crop loss, minimize utility costs, save on capital equipment, and maximize sustainability.
Value-Added Reselling of Cultivation Equipment Systems
The company acts as an experienced vendor providing VAR to the company’s clients when selling vetted best-in-class commercial horticulture lighting solutions, rolling and automated container benching systems, specialty fans, fertigation/irrigation systems, environmental control systems, and microbial mitigation and odor reduction systems. The acquired knowledge of how each of these systems work in combination with and in tangent to the overall ecosystem is a significant benefit that the company’s engineers and product experts offer to the company’s clients. Not only are many competing products reviewed in each category with the intention of vetting the best solution, but the company also continually searches out and reviews competing technologies to ensure that only the best-in-class equipment systems are integrated into the company’s projects. As such, it will be imperative to maintain and to continue to develop close relationships with both existing and new leading technology and manufacturing providers.
The company typically does not sell any cultivation equipment systems individually as a one-time sale. The majority of equipment sales are sold as part of a larger all-encompassing project solution that spans over a 12 to 24 month period and includes design, engineering, and the sale of both custom complex and more standard equipment systems.
Strategic Vendor Relationships with Premier Manufacturers
The company works with leading technology and manufacturing providers to deliver an integrated solution designed to achieve the stated objectives of the company’s clients. The company prides itself as being equipment agnostic – meaning the company does not have allegiances to any single manufacturer – the company offers the solution that will best meet the design and budget constraints of the company’s clients and design, engineer, and integrate whatever equipment fits the client's needs.
Clients
The company primarily markets and sells its solutions to clients in the CEA and Commercial sectors. In the CEA sector, the company’s clients include operators and facilitators in both the cannabis and produce markets in the United States, Canada, and Europe. In the Commercial sector, the company work with leading food and beverage consumer packaged goods companies in the United States, and clients in healthcare, higher education, and hospitality.
Growth Strategy
The company’s growth strategy is to leverage its sector diversification and in-house capability offerings; focus on design-build solution; and expand the company’s regional client base.
History
urban-gro, Inc. was founded in 2014.
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