This morning, agrobotics incubator and venture fund Reservoir announced that it has acquired Contain. You can read more about the acquisition here.
It’s a fitting next chapter for our work at Contain. Reservoir, based in California’s Salinas Valley, runs two sibling businesses. Firstly, Reservoir Farms is the world’s first robotics incubator on a working farm: 40 acres of commercial specialty-crop fields and engineering barns, built with more than $8M in non-dilutive funding from the State of California, John Deere, and Western Growers, alongside partners like Driscoll’s, Taylor Farms, and Nutrien. Reservoir VC is a venture capital fund, with a thesis built around Rugged AI: intelligent, physical systems built to work in harsh, real-world conditions across industries from mining and construction to land management and agriculture. Contain’s founder, Nicola Kerslake, is joining Reservoir VC as a General Partner.
We started Contain to lower the cost of capital for indoor and controlled-environment growers, and we’re proud of what that turned into: equipment leasing, the Equipped marketplace, and the Insights data platform. Below is what the acquisition means for our clients:
Leasing Clients
If you have an active lease application with us, you’ll hear from the team separately with details specific to your application. Nothing in progress will be affected by this announcement, and we’ll be in direct contact to walk you through next steps.
Update as at July 12: we are no longer accepting lease applications.
Equipped
- New listings and offers are closing. As of Monday, June 22, Equipped will stop accepting new listings and new offers.
- The platform stays live until July 31. Existing listings and in-progress sales remain accessible through that date.
- Please complete any in-progress sales by July 31. Any sale not completed by then will be unwound and refunded.
- Listing fees have been refunded pro rata from July 12. If you’ve paid for a listing period that runs past July 12, we have refunded the unused portion. Refunds have been processed via Stripe to your original payment method.
Insights
- The platform stays live until July 31. You’ll have full access to the funding data, farm and investor profiles, and briefing papers through that date.
- Monthly subscribers won’t be charged again. We’ve stopped all renewals, so you won’t see another monthly charge before the platform closes.
- Annual subscribers have been refunded pro rata. If you’re partway through an annual subscription, we have refunded the unused portion. Refunds were processed via Stripe on July 12 to your original payment method.
Questions?
If you have any questions about your account, an in-progress transaction, or a refund, just reach out, we’d be happy to help. The Reservoir team is here to support you through the transition.
Thank you for being part of the Contain community.