Letter from the CEO

When Randy Johnson and I co-founded Fluence Bioengineering, numerous people asked me why we wanted to start an LED lighting company to serve the horticulture industry.

My response to them was, and continues to be, the commercial horticulture industry is on the same trajectory we saw play out in Silicon Valley. From the smartphones in our pockets to the smart appliances in our homes, technology is radically changing the world around us. Similarly, the commercial cannabis industry is experiencing a seismic change, which is being driven by the compound semiconductor and its application in LED lighting. The opportunity to use our collective experience to help farmers produce more nutritious crops and more efficacious medicine was too powerful to ignore.

The core mission at Fluence Bioengineering is to help growers achieve their cultivation and business growth objectives while simultaneously reducing the associated input costs and resources. This equips our customers with the power to price their products strategically in an industry that is starting to experience price compression in various markets.

To ensure our customers are successful in this dynamic market, we are continuously gaining valuable insights from our industry partners, and we repeatedly ask, “How can we improve?” At any given time, we are working with multiple partners and research institutions around the world to explore novel ways we can use lighting systems to produce quantifiable and repeatable results. Specifically, we run controlled environment experiments to understand how photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD), spectral composition and photoperiodic light treatments can increase yield and alter cannabinoid profiles and terpene expression.

My desire to start a business that fundamentally reshapes the commercial agriculture industry has been fueled by my desire to be a leader in the cannabis industry. We are not interested in marketing untested LED products to drive near-term sales growth; instead, we want to drive the innovation that will position the cannabis industry as a technology leader in the global agriculture market.

With an unwavering commitment to the commercial cannabis industry, we are pleased to be the exclusive sponsor of Cannabis Business Times’ research for the second annual “State of the Lighting Market” report. We support CBT’s efforts to share scientific knowledge and industry trends, as we believe the data in this report will give cultivators impactful insights into the future of profitable cannabis farms. We look forward to embarking on this exciting journey together.

Nick Klase

Co-Founder & CEO

Fluence Bioengineering