AppHarvest founder Jonathan Webb and board member Martha Stewart on public debut

Agricultural tech start-up AppHarvest is going public through a SPAC. The company merging with Novus Capital Corporation, a special purpose acquisition company. Jonathan Webb, founder and CEO of AppHarvest, and Martha Stewart, founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia as well as AppHarvest board member, join "Squawk Box" to discuss the deal as well as the company's mission. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/2NGeIvi

An indoor farming start-up that heralds itself as the future of agriculture and has Martha Stewart on its board announced Tuesday it is going public through a reverse merger, the latest in a series of blank-check deals during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kentucky-based AppHarvest is merging with special purpose acquisition company Novus Capital Corp., while picking up $475 million in financing, $375 million of which is coming through a PIPE, or private investment in public equity.

Shares of Novus Capital were rising more than 15% on Tuesday after the deal was publicized. The transaction is set to close in the late fourth quarter of this year or early in 2021, according to a release.

AppHarvest operates a 60-acre facility in Morehead, Kentucky, that it says is one of the world’s largest high-tech greenhouses. Its first harvest of tomatoes is anticipated early next year.

“We want the consumers of our fruits and vegetables to be the owner in our company, be the advocate in marketing with us that is going to help drive agriculture forward here in America,” AppHarvest CEO Jonathan Webb said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

The capital raised through the deal will be used to scale up AppHarvest’s indoor farming facilities, according to a release. Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, raise money from investors through an IPO and then attempt to merge with a private company to take it public. It has been a record year for SPAC offerings during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The transaction announced Tuesday gives AppHarvest, whose board also includes investor Jeffrey Ubben and Impossible Foods CFO David Lee, a valuation of around $1 billion.

Webb defended the valuation, contending it reflects both the opportunity and the necessity for indoor farming in the world as it experiences the realities of climate change alongside a growing population.

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Видео AppHarvest founder Jonathan Webb and board member Martha Stewart on public debut канала CNBC Television