NYC indoor farming startup raises $300M from high-profile investors

A New York City-based startup is growing leafy salad greens indoors — and it just raised a bunch of cabbage from investors including Natalie Portman and Justin Timberlake.

Bowery Farming said Tuesday it had raised $300 million in a funding round that values its business at $2.3 billion. Alongside traditional venture capital backers, other notable investors include celebrity chef José Andrés, basketball player Chris Paul of the Phoenix Suns and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton.  The Manhattan-based company converts industrial buildings like warehouses into “vertical farms” tended by automated equipment, a technique it says allows all its crops to be grown year-round regardless of weather conditions, outdoor pests and pollution.