Greenhouse, Nursery & Controlled-Environment Agriculture Software — Climate Control, Crop Planning, Plant Inventory and Labour
The buyer population — Greenhouse, nursery and floriculture production
Base industry report for 1114 →- Establishments · CanadaA
- 2,369
- Under 10 employeesA
- 52%
Of 2,369 Canadian establishments with employees, 52% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators. Each of those is one potential account, before any filter for size or fit.
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
One thing must be trueEntry turns on a single condition that can be named and tested before much is spent. Clear it and this becomes an execution question; fail it and no amount of operating skill helps.
Displace an incumbent the screen found well defended — payments attached to the workflow, data that does not leave, a contract that renews itself. Share here means giving a buyer a reason to break something that currently works, which is a higher bar than being better.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 16
The binding constraint — incumbent vulnerability
The control layer of a greenhouse is a Dutch hardware oligopoly, and the software that grows on top of it is already funded and consolidating — an entrant would sit between a climate computer it cannot replace and AI vendors with $60m+ behind them. Every commercial glasshouse runs a climate/irrigation computer that is wired into its boilers, vents, screens, lights and fertigation units: Priva (De Lier; 560+ employees, 10K horticulture projects, a family business) [C], Ridder (Maasdijk; greenhouse technology since 1953, HortOS cloud) [C] and Hoogendoorn (Vlaardingen; IIVO, sold in North America through AdeptAg since December 2023) [B/C] supply most of it, with Argus Control Systems (Langley, BC — a Conviron/Controlled Environments Limited company since April 2013) [B] the Canadian exception. Replacing that computer is a capital project, not a subscription decision. The software opportunity above it has been taken by funded entrants. Source.ag (Amsterdam) raised a $23M Series A led by Astanor in 2023 ($35M total then) [B], says it runs in 500+ greenhouses in 25 countries and works with 13 of the 25 largest high-tech growers [C], and on 9 October 2026 bought Optimal, a London autonomous-climate start-up [C]. Blue Radix (Rotterdam) raised €5M in October 2024 from Navus Ventures and Horticoop for its autonomous Crop Controller, on nearly 100 greenhouses [B]. IUNU (Seattle) bought Artemis — the cultivation-management, labour and food-safety platform formerly Agrilyst — in September 2021, raised a $24M Series B led by Lewis & Clark in March 2022 (claiming over 25% of the North American CEA market) and $20M led by S2G in April 2025 [B]; about $64.5M disclosed in all. LetsGrow.com (2,000+ growers, 45+ countries; founded 2001 from a Wageningen initiative; visiting address the same Vlaardingen building as Hoogendoorn) [C] and 30MHz (Rotterdam, 250+ growers; €3.5M Series A 2019 and €6.5M in 2021 led by Rubio Impact Ventures) [B/C] hold the data-platform layer; Grodan's e-Gro app ties ROCKWOOL's stone-wool substrate to the same data [C]. In vertical farming the operating software comes bundled with the hardware: Intelligent Growth Solutions (Edinburgh) raised £5.4M (2019), £42.2M (2021) and £22.5M (2024) for its growth towers and software suite [B], while Agrify's US cultivation business (cannabis-led) is not reachable online and is left out. Koidra, which won the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge twice, now markets itself as an agentic system for industrial processes in general [C] — one of the few autonomous-greenhouse start-ups that widened rather than deepened. The buyer pool is real but narrow. Canada had 974 commercial greenhouse vegetable operations in 2024 (Ontario 382) [A]; greenhouse area was 35.9 million m² in 2025, 64.9% in Ontario, and the whole greenhouse, nursery and sod sector sold $6.5B, of which nursery $852.7M [A]. The high-tech vegetable growers already buy from the Dutch suppliers; the flower, potted-plant and nursery growers buy order-and-inventory ERP from small long-lived vendors — CompuPlants (since 1988) [C] or ERP add-ons such as Velosio's SilverLeaf on Microsoft Dynamics [C] — a fragmented niche (nursery operations were not counted for this record) with no funded leader found. How this differs from its neighbours: 1114 Greenhouse & Controlled-Environment Production is the growing business itself (capital, energy and wholesale price); this record is the software that business buys. 1151 Farm Management & Precision Agriculture is open-field — tractors, agronomy and field irrigation (Hortau sits there, not here). 3123 Cannabis Seed-to-Sale is a compliance-reporting market that shares some greenhouse vendors (Argus, Agrify, Artemis's cannabis tools) but sells against a government tracking mandate. Incumbent vulnerability decides it: the hardware incumbents are not vulnerable, and the AI layer that could have been the wedge is already held by Source.ag, Blue Radix and IUNU.
Sectors joined: Agriculture · Cellular Agriculture
[UNVERIFIED] Sector-to-NAICS mapping is analyst judgment — see data/angel-sector-map.json. Counts are a per-record cross-reference and are not additive across records.
The incumbent
Who owns this market and who is coming for it. Fields a screen never reached say so rather than guessing.
Financials & market size — sourced
Figures that came from a filing, a results release or reputable reporting, each carrying its evidence tier.
The field
Every vendor named on this record, and what each one discloses. Most disclose nothing, which is why the market is not sized.
Competitor set · 14 named · 0 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| PrivaC | not disclosed | — | Private family business; no revenue published — Netherlands. Climate and process computers for horticulture plus building automation; 560+ employees, 10K horticulture projects, 100+ countries (About page) |
| RidderC | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published — Maasdijk, Netherlands; since 1953. Process automation, climate screens, drives and the HortOS cloud (Yield, Manager, Grower modules) |
| HoogendoornC | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published — Vlaardingen, Netherlands. IIVO climate computer (successor to iSii), sensors and Work-IT labour registration; North American partnership with AdeptAg announced December 2023 |
| Argus Control SystemsB | not disclosed | — | Acquired by Conviron (Controlled Environments Limited, Winnipeg), April 2013, terms not disclosed — Langley, BC (moved from White Rock, then Surrey). Climate control, fertigation and irrigation automation for greenhouses, vertical farms and research facilities |
| Source.agB | not disclosed | — | $23M Series A (March 2023, led by Astanor Ventures; $35M total then). A later Series B was reported but not confirmed on an opened page — Amsterdam; founded 2020. Cultivation management, harvest forecast, irrigation control; 500+ greenhouses in 25 countries [C]; acquired Optimal (London) 9 Oct 2026 |
| Blue RadixB | not disclosed | — | €5M (October 2024) from Navus Ventures and Horticoop — Rotterdam. Crop Controller — autonomous climate and irrigation control on nearly 100 greenhouses |
| IUNUB | not disclosed | — | $20M (April 2025, led by S2G Investments with Farm Credit Canada and Lewis and Clark Partners); earlier $6M (2017), $7.5M (2019), $7M Series A (2020) — Seattle. LUNA computer vision and production planning; acquired Artemis (cultivation management, labour, food safety; formerly Agrilyst) and CropWalk in 2021 — artemisag.com now redirects to iunu.com |
| LetsGrow.comC | not disclosed | — | Private; no funding found — Netherlands. Grower data platform and intelligent assistance; 2,000+ growers, 45+ countries, 50+ employees (homepage) |
| 30MHzC | not disclosed | — | Private — Rotterdam. Sensor and data platform for horticulture; 250+ growers (homepage); €3.5M Series A (2019) and €6.5M (Nov 2021, led by Rubio Impact Ventures) |
| GrodanC | not disclosed | — | Inside ROCKWOOL Group; not broken out — Roermond, Netherlands (Grodan ROCKWOOL B.V.). Stone-wool substrates plus the e-Gro irrigation and root-zone data software — a substrate seller's app, not a standalone software business |
| AdeptAgB | not disclosed | — | Private; no funding found — Platform formed 2022 from AgriNomix, Bellpark, Plantech Control Solutions and Zwart Irrigation; Hoogendoorn's North American partner (Dec 2023); says 90% of the Top 100 ornamental growers are customers [C] |
| Intelligent Growth SolutionsB | not disclosed | — | £5.4M Series A (June 2019, S2G Ventures), £42.2M Series B (Nov 2021, COFRA), £22.5M Series C (Jan 2024, COFRA, DC Thomson, S2G) — Edinburgh / Inverkeithing, Scotland. Vertical-farm Growth Towers sold to operators with a proprietary software suite; does not grow for sale itself |
| CompuPlantsC | not disclosed | — | Private; no funding found — Tualatin, Oregon; since 1988. Nursery software for growers, brokers and wholesalers — order entry, inventory, purchase orders, truck loading, accounting |
| VelosioC | not disclosed | — | Private Microsoft Dynamics partner; the grower line is not broken out — Atlanta, Georgia. SilverLeaf for Horticulture on Dynamics 365 Business Central — production planning, grow-cycle inventory, speed order entry, load management; logos include Bell Nursery and Bonnie Plants |
Nobody here publishes revenue. The market is not sized for that reason — an estimate built on nothing would only look like knowledge.
Startups & challengers
Newer and smaller vendors going at the incumbent — funded challengers first. Named, not researched to the depth of the field above; a company with a page here links to it.
| Company | Stage | What it does | Raised |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hortau | Funded challenger | Precision irrigation (soil tension sensors) with US HQ in San Luis Obispo and Canadian HQ in Lévis, QC — open-field, belongs to 1151 | — |
| Koidra | Funded challenger | Autonomous-growing AI that won the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge in 2018 and 2022; now sells an agentic system for industrial processes generally | — |
| Croptracker | Scrappy competitor | Kingston, Ontario (Dragonfly IT), since 2006: record-keeping, labour tracking and traceability for fruit and vegetable growers — mostly open-field | — |
Evidence
Evidence. Sourced 2026-10-20 by direct retrieval. Tier A: Statistics Canada, The Daily, 'Greenhouse, sod and nursery industries, 2025' (22 April 2026) for sales, area, payroll, energy and operating expenses; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 'Statistical Overview of the Canadian Greenhouse Vegetable and Mushroom Industry 2024' (modified 15 Oct 2025) for operation counts and farm-gate value, citing Statistics Canada tables 32-10-0019-01 and 32-10-0456-01. Tier B: Global AgInvesting on Source.ag's $23M Series A (8 Mar 2023), Agrilyst/Artemis's $8M Series A (23 May 2019), IUNU's $6M (24 Aug 2017) and $24M Series B (22 Mar 2022); Silicon Canals on 30MHz's €6.5M (15 Nov 2021); AgFunderNews on IGS's £5.4M Series A (18 Jun 2019) and £42.2M Series B (4 Nov 2021); Scottish Financial News on IGS's £22.5M Series C (18 Jan 2024); Hoogendoorn's own release on the AdeptAg partnership (6 Dec 2023); Vestbee on Blue Radix's €5M (9 Oct 2024); Pulse 2.0 on IUNU's $20M (Apr 2025); AgFunderNews on IUNU acquiring Artemis (27 Sep 2021, undisclosed) and on Hortau's $10M (Feb 2016); Greenhouse Canada on Conviron acquiring Argus (18 Apr 2013, undisclosed). Tier C: vendor homepages and About pages (Priva, Ridder, Hoogendoorn, Argus, Conviron, Source.ag and its Optimal page, Blue Radix, IUNU, LetsGrow.com, 30MHz, Grodan, Koppert, AdeptAg, Intelligent Growth Solutions, CompuPlants, Croptracker, Hortau, Koidra) for products, addresses and customer counts. Koppert (Berkel en Rodenrijs; biological crop protection and pollination since 1967, 3,000+ employees) [C] is named only as the biocontrol supplier whose scouting and monitoring tie into these systems — it is not a software vendor. Source.ag's reported Series B (Nov 2025, $17.5M, Astanor) was found only on a site that bars automated fetches and is not counted. What these do not establish: no vendor's revenue or share; IUNU's '25% of North American CEA' is a company claim repeated by the press; greenhouse software market size is UNVERIFIED. The claim that the three Dutch suppliers hold most of the high-tech climate-computer base is analyst judgment from the trade, not a measured share.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
National federation of provincial horticulture and landscape associations since 1922; runs the Canadian Nursery Certification Institute — the Canadian nursery grower buyer
Global non-profit for indoor and vertical farming with a member map and forum
Non-profit publishing energy and resource benchmarks and best-practice guides for CEA and greenhouse cultivators
Horticulture-technology trade show where the climate-computer and AI vendors launch; 15-17 June 2027 (GreenTech Americas 9-11 March 2027)
Greenhouse, CEA and vertical-farming trade show; 24-25 March 2027, Westgate Las Vegas
Nursery and greenhouse trade show in Portland, 25-27 August 2027; where nursery-ERP vendors such as CompuPlants exhibit
Ball Publishing's greenhouse and floriculture trade magazine; covers production software and AI for greenhouse teams
Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, Canadian Greenhouse Conference, Flowers Canada Growers, AmericanHort, Cultivate and Greenhouse Grower are on the 1114 Greenhouse & Controlled-Environment Production record and not repeated. The BC Greenhouse Growers' Association site was password-protected ('in review'); the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge site refused connections; Nursery Management magazine, HortiDaily and Produce Grower bar Claude in robots.txt. Reddit was not checked.
The businesses it sells to
Operating-business records filed along the same branch of NAICS — the customers of this software, screened as businesses in their own right.
Controlled-environment growing converts capital and energy into produce, and both inputs are priced against a wholesale price the grower does not set. The vertical-farming cohort that raised heavily on this thesis has largely failed on it — energy per kilogram was the number that mattered and it did not fall fast enough. Greenhouse vegetable production works at scale in specific gas-price geographies, which is a siting decision more than an operating one.
Land price per acre has decoupled from what an acre can yield, which means the entry cost is set by a real-estate market rather than by an agricultural one — in the BC valleys most acutely. The decoupling is measurable in two of Statistics Canada's own tables: the average value of Canadian farm land and buildings went from $2,550 an acre in 2015 to $5,643 in 2025, while realized net farm income for the whole country went from $7.02B to $8.34B [A]. The asset repriced by 121% against an earnings base that grew 19%, and Ontario at $21,073 an acre and British Columbia at $10,577 are where the gap is widest. An entrant buys the acre at a price the crop cannot service, and pays it to a seller whose alternative bidder is a larger farm or an investor rather than a new operator. The versions that clear the hurdle are high-value protected culture and direct marketing, both of which need capital and neither of which is farming in the sense the buyer usually means — Local Bounti, one of the listed controlled-environment growers, sold $48.4M of produce in 2025, lost $94.4M doing it, and carried $483.1M of long-term debt at year end [A]. The farm-management software above this code is screened separately at 1151.