Rockwool, the dominant grow medium in global controlled-environment agriculture (CEA), carries cement-level lifecycle emissions, generates waste equivalent to 2,000 cargo ships annually by 2030 and drives up to 40% yield loss through disease—creating nearly $1.4M in hidden costs per 1M lettuce heads produced. With 1.9B units consumed globally and demand doubling by 2030, rockwool is actively undermining the sustainability of the climate-resilient food systems it was meant to enable.
Lyrata's SmartSoil is a reusable, plug-and-play, plant-based grow medium engineered to replace rockwool and peat across indoor and field agriculture. It reduces lifecycle emissions by 65x (validated by government-audited LCAs), cuts disease-driven yield loss through proprietary biostimulant coatings and lasts 18 months before full composting—reducing competitors' hidden costs by up to 50%. SmartSoil is now being extended into field agriculture through a partnership with SONY-CSL's Koozyt, expanding its addressable market significantly beyond hydroponics.
SmartSoil provides social value by enabling scalable, low-cost, climate-resilient, fresh and local food production across indoor and resource-constrained farming systems, thus strengthening climate-resilient food systems for urban communities and food-insecure regions. Lyrata earns revenue through SmartSoil-as-a-Service: clients pay a monthly fee for a complete SmartSoil grow-media system, with recurring revenue from pathogen-protection coating subscriptions and one-time washing machine purchases to automate on-site reuse. With 8+ paid pilots across Canada and Japan—including Macnica, SONY-CSL, JustVertical and Plantaform—and distribution scaling through Japan Agriculture's national network, Lyrata's patent-pending technology creates compounding competitive barriers that incumbents will find costly and slow to replicate.