Jul 24, 2020   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Introducing Sensei Ag, a Market-Changing AgTech Company Founded by Larry Ellison and Dr. David Agus

Joined together on a mission to improve health and wellness through data, technology and scientific research, Oracle Co-founder Larry Ellison and acclaimed physician and scientist Dr. David Agus formed Sensei Holdings, Inc., including Sensei Farms and Sensei Retreats, on the Hawaiian island of Lāna’i. Today, Sensei Holdings, Inc. announces that it is bifurcating the agriculture and leisure travel units to provide each company its own growth trajectory. The farms division will now operate as Sensei Ag (“the Company”), a market-changing AgTech company. Sensei Retreats (“Sensei”) will retain the singular Sensei name. Each company will be led by proven experts in their respective fields: Kevin Kelly, a pioneer of sustainable development with 35 years’ experience in the leisure wellness industry as Chief Executive Officer of Sensei Wellness and Sonia Lo, an AgriFood leader with over 32 years of experience in finance and controlled environment agriculture as Chief Executive Officer of Sensei Ag.

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Sensei Ag’s Visionary Co-founders, Larry Ellison and Dr. David Agus (pictured left to right) (Photo: Sensei Ag)

Sensei Ag’s Visionary Co-founders, Larry Ellison and Dr. David Agus (pictured left to right) (Photo: Sensei Ag)

Sensei Ag continues the spirit and draws upon the technological foundations of its sister company Sensei Retreats. With the shared vision of helping people live longer, healthier lives, Sensei Ag will take the learnings of its pilot farm on Lāna’i across the globe and bring hyper-local, nutrient-rich, affordable food to developed and emerging economies.

Using Dr. Agus’ cutting-edge scientific research, Sensei Ag deploys innovative, agile growing systems that can dramatically increase farm productivity in three ways. First, the Company uses modular components in its production process to quickly and efficiently deploy the highest performing technologies. Second, Sensei Ag implements each of its technologies in a form factor agnostic manner, growing plants in the environment best suited for each crop. Third, through a combination of partnership, collaboration and acquisition, Sensei Ag significantly reduces the time needed to build a large-scale indoor farm, ensuring the relevance and freshness of all of its technology. These three pillars of Sensei Ag’s operational strategy will finally make controlled environment agriculture accessible and affordable to all.

Commenting on this transformative AgTech company, Dr. David Agus, co-founder of Sensei Ag and founding director of USC's Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine noted, “To feed a planet of nearly 8 billion people and growing, food production and nutrition must be reimagined. Employing science along with human health and consumer-driven data, we will right global inconsistencies in nutrition, promote food security and develop technologies capable of cultivating produce that is unmistakably better tasting and healthier than anything grown today.”

At the forefront of this incredible journey to make nutritionally-relevant meals accessible to all is CEO Sonia Lo. Most recently, Sonia was CEO of an AgTech company leading a joint venture in Dubai to develop one of the world’s largest vertical farms. Appointed a Global 100 Technology Pioneer at the World Economic Forum two years in a row, Sonia’s passion to strengthen the planet’s agricultural infrastructure is unmatched.

“It’s an aspiration and an honor to join the Sensei Ag team and work with such visionary founders,” said Sonia Lo. “There has never been a better time to rebuild our global food and agriculture supply chains. We are incredibly well positioned with Larry and David’s guidance, knowledge and networks to become the leader in our space. Although our goals are substantial, our plan is simple. To start, we will be good farmers and aim to only grow food people want to eat. We will then use data and innovative growing processes to cultivate food just-in-time and with peak nutritional value in every bite. Sensei Ag is the future of farming and the answer to nourishing our planet – effectively and deliciously.”

Sensei Ag is currently piloting its growing techniques at Sensei Farms Lāna’i, which has the capacity to produce over a million pounds of food per year, all in less than an acre of space and with 90% less water than traditional farming. Once completed, Sensei Farms’ Lāna’i location will have six greenhouses each 20,000 square feet in size. The current greenhouses on Lāna’i supply a variety of nutritious and flavorful fruits, vegetables and herbs grown on site to Sensei Retreats, local chefs, hoteliers and retailers within hours of harvest. To learn more about sustainable growing at its finest and explore the future of farming technology, please visit sensei.ag.

About Sensei Ag

Sensei Ag is a market-changing AgTech company on a mission to solve global gaps and inconsistencies in nutrition, food safety, and food security through the transformative power of data. Guided by the incomparable capabilities and insights of our founders, technology entrepreneur and Oracle Co-Founder Larry Ellison and esteemed physician and scientist Dr. David Agus, we design, develop and deploy cutting-edge agricultural technologies to build a better, more stable food supply that is capable of feeding our entire world nutritionally-relevant, delicious, affordable meals. We are the present and the future of farming, fostering agricultural innovations that will improve and support human health and wellness for decades to come. Sensei Ag: driven by data; grounded in science; focused on wellbeing. Learn more about our innovations in agriculture by visiting our website at sensei.ag and connecting with us on LinkedIn.

About Sensei Holdings, Inc.

Larry Ellison and Dr. David Agus met through their mutual ambition to focus on preventative measures when it comes to health. From different worlds – Larry a technology entrepreneur and David a doctor – they realized their friendship and diverse backgrounds laid the foundation to create something new, a company that could help the world live longer, healthier lives. The 2018 announcement of Sensei's sustainable farm on Lāna’i was the first product unveiled within the Sensei ecosystem, which will evolve to include future products and experiences in the years to come. The farm focuses on growing sustainable, nutritional and unique varietals of produce for the Hawaiian market and community. The global network of Retreats, the first of which Sensei Lāna’i, a Four Seasons Resort which opened in November 2019, will feature highly personalized programming and immersive wellness experiences in beautiful and inspiring locations. For more information, visit Sensei's website at sensei.com.

Larry Ellison is a technology entrepreneur and philanthropist who is Co-Founder, Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Oracle Corporation, as well as a Tesla Board Member.

Dr. David Agus is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering and the founding director of USC's Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine and specializes in treating patients with advanced cancer. He's received acclaim for his innovations in medicine and contributions to new technologies that will change how all of us maintain optimal health. He is a regular contributor to CBS News and a New York Times #1 and international best-selling author.