Oishii Strawberries

Oishii, a U.S. startup with Japanese roots that is known for its premium strawberries, has raised $134 million in a recent funding round from 19 investors including Nippon Telegraph and Telephone.

Founded in 2016, the New Jersey-based company, led by co-founder and CEO Hiroki Koga , uses agricultural technology from Japan to grow sweet Japanese strawberry varieties in U.S. indoor farms without using pesticides. Its products have gained a following through word of mouth and have been served in high-profile New York restaurants.

In 2022, Oishii began offering its berries in high-end grocery stores, where they now sell for around $11 for a pack of six. It has since expanded its lineup with sweet cherry tomatoes.

The new funding will go toward a massive state-of-the-art indoor farm under construction in New Jersey. The facility will feature power generation on-site as well as a water-recycling system. Oishii aims to use robots and artificial intelligence to automate everything from planting to harvesting.

This was the company's second major funding round, after having raised $55 million in 2021. NTT, which was likely the top investor this time, has been researching indoor farming on its own, and aims to leverage its investment to partner with Oishii and gain more expertise in the field.

Also providing funding was Yaskawa Electric, which has teamed up with Oishii to develop automation systems for the startup's farms. The goal is to fully automate tasks handled by humans, such as harvesting, packaging and inspection, in five to 10 years.

Mizuho Bank, food wholesaler Mitsubishi Shokuhin, and the Japan Green Investment Corp. for Carbon Neutrality, a public-private fund, were also among the 14 Japanese participants in the funding round. The other five hailed from outside Japan, including Taiwan's CTBC Bank, U.K.-based McWin Capital Partners, and China-linked fund Nymph Investments Cayman.

The size of Oishii's funding round is unusual for an early-stage startup coming out of Japan. But more fledgling businesses there are planning for overseas expansion from the outset, drawing more attention from international investors, while nonfinancial companies are increasingly buying into unlisted enterprises related to their own operations.

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