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TECHNOLOGY
25
gallons of water a day is all each
TerraFarm’s hydroponics needs. Climate
controls and LED grow lights also
help nurture crops including butterhead
lettuce, baby kale, Italian basil, and
arugula with a wasabi-like kick.
To maximize water eiciency
and recirculation, hundreds
of sensors track such
factors as airflow and water
temperature and feed the
data to TerraFarms stafers
for real-time tweaking.
29
4,000
heads of lettuce can come from a single TerraFarm
every 10 to 12 days. They grow from seed to full maturity
in 30 days. Outdoor farming takes at least 60 days.
Local Roots buys old
containers from the Port of
Los Angeles for about $5,000
and retrofits them for more
than double that. It owns the
farms and contracts with
clients for a set period of use.
Container Farm
Climate
Los Angeles startup Local Roots retrofits 40-foot-long shipping
containers, turning them into “TerraFarms” that yield as many
leafy greens as five acres of farmland—only faster, using as little
as 1 percent of the water. The company leases TerraFarms to
wholesalers, restaurant chains, and SpaceX. The United Nations
is preparing to field-test them, too. Chief Executive Oicer Eric
Ellestad, a venture capitalist who’s raised about $11 million for
Local Roots, says he’ll stand by the taste of the greens grown in
the former containers, no salad dressing required. “Chefs we
work with,” he says, “that’s what sells them.”—
Adam Popescu
Irrigation
Yield
E ciency
Overhead
Customers place the container
farms at food distribution
centers so they can cut out
days or even weeks of produce
travel time.
analyst at Forrester Research Inc. “This deal with
Walmart can provide Flipkart the expertise of run-
ning oline stores, access to sellers and manufac-
turers, supply chain, and the know-how to get into
the grocery segment.” Flipkart, founded in 2007 by
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal (who aren’t related),
attracted powerful overseas backers including Tiger
Global Management, SoftBank Vision Fund, Tencent
Holdings, EBay, and Microsoft.
Krishnamurthy spent seven years in EBay’s
Asia inance operations before joining Tiger Global
Management LLC as inance director in 2011. He
arrived at Flipkart in early 2013 as interim chief
inancial oicer to support the Bansals, who each
spent time as CEO. Yet Flipkart struggled against
Amazon, which was shut out of China by Alibaba and
smaller rival JD. Amazon CEO Jef Bezos didn’t want
a repeat in India. Amazon committed $5.5 billion
to its eforts, and country manager Amit Agarwal
adapted the site to local conditions—such as simpli-
fying the app so it didn’t crash cheap smartphones.
That helped propel Amazon to No. 2 behind
Flipkart in just four years, and the Seattle-based
company started to consider a partnership with its
rival. In January 2017, the Bansals stepped aside to
make way for Krishnamurthy as CEO. He started his
tenure by trying to change the narrative from one
of “deep-pocketed Amazon vs. startup Flipkart” to
one based on a homegrown operator knowing what
1.3 billion Indians want.
He set goals for online traic and sales, stream-
lined operations, and ired poor performers. He also
implemented what he called the “80-20 rule”—focus-
ing on the 20 percent of categories that generated
80 percent of Flipkart’s revenue. Those catego-
ries included large appliances, fashion, and mobile
phones. “He would pound on the doors of vendors
to cut exclusive deals,” says RedSeer’s Kumar.
India is a medley of income levels, languages,
and cultures—a place Krishnamurthy describes as
“several countries within a country.” He’s said he
wants Flipkart to appeal to as many people as pos-
sible. The company introduced round-the-clock cus-
tomer service, ofering demonstrations to irst-time
appliance buyers and typically sending technicians
to small homes to mount TVs on the wall.
Krishnamurthy himself answered customer ser-
vice calls when he irst became CEO. “It is an eye-
opener on how and why India buys online,” he told
Bloomberg News during a 2017 interview. “It’s been
a great investment of my time.”
—Saritha Rai, with
Shelly Banjo
THE BOTTOM LINE Flipkart CEO Krishnamurthy took a hands-
on approach to remaking his company, resulting in a $16 billion
investment from Walmart.