This self-watering plant pot just hit its crowdfunding goal

Imagine a self-watering pot which will tell you when your plant is thirsty for water or hungry for sun and nutritious soil. One you can control remotely from your smartphone. That’s Greenopia.

This urban gardening product by Bangalore-based startup Greenopia has today announced a successful crowdfunding campaign on Wishberry. It surpassed its funding goal and raised INR 9,58,500 (US$15,000) in 45 days.

The company is backed by 117 investors from across six different countries. Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, professor of design anthropology Dori Tunstall, user experience designer Diana Greenberg, prolific angel investors Rajan Anandan, head of Google India, and Sharad Sharma, co-founder of think-tank iSPIRT are among the many supporting this startup.

Greenopia builds internet-enabled urban gardening products. Its key offering is an internet-enabled smart pot for urban gardening. The pot, called Greenopia, has sensors that can tell if the soil conditions are right, and the plant in the pot is wilting. All this information can be remotely accessed using a mobile application, allowing users to monitor their plants.

“The app acts as a personal gardening assistant and suggests ways to maintain a healthy plant. It will also have a community feature to help users share their pictures and experiences with other users on the platform. The smart pot will also be a self-watering pot,” says Mayukhini Pande, co-founder and head of research, Greenopia.

However, raising money was no smooth sailing for Greenopia. It had to deal with doubts on whether a small group of young Indian can deliver what they promised – technology-enabled gardening customized for a busy urban lifestyle. Pande believes that Greenopia’s early adopters can make a difference in changing this perception.

“Also, crowdfunding is a relatively new concept, especially in India. Technical issues on the site and payment methods of our crowdfunding platform added to our woes,” she says.

“The money raised would be invested for manufacturing the smart pots, developing the mobile application and delivering it to our investors,” says Pande. Greenopia is planning to raise more funding in the near future. It is currently focused on keeping its crowdfunding promise.

Talking about Greenopia’s competitors, she says, “There are a number of IoT products in gardening such as Parrot Flower Power. Greenopia is different from them in user experience. It also stands apart in the way it combines the well-designed containers with a mobile application to form a complete kit for most critical gardening pain points.”