The Story Behind Burgeon
"Food systems shouldn't be controlled by distance, drought, or dependency.
Burgeon was founded on the belief that autonomy in food is the foundation of sustainability."
Hari Von Wintr, Founder
Founder's Story
Hari founded Burgeon out of a simple realization: despite living in an age of instant access, growing our own food remains complex, unsustainable, and inaccessible. A lifelong vegetarian turned vegan, sustainability has always been deeply personal to him.
From a young age, Hari was fascinated by the future, imagining a world where food could be produced at home at the press of a button. Yet decades later, agriculture remained centralized, costly, and wasteful. After years of experimenting with plant-based meats, vertical farming, and IoT prototypes, he discovered that the true challenge wasn’t just sustainable production, it was access.
Living between Los Angeles, Paris, and Cape Town, Hari saw firsthand how fragile global food systems really were: empty shelves during COVID, wheat inflation during war, and blueberries shipped thousands of miles from South Africa to France. These moments crystallized the mission.
While experimenting with vertical farming from first principles, Hari built a smart reservoir, a hydroponic system linked to sensors and automated dosing. But when he ran into the high capital costs and poor margins of warehouse-scale farming, a realization struck him in his Paris apartment: the future of farming isn’t in warehouses, it’s in homes.
From that corner of his apartment, Burgeon Systems was born, a company redefining how we grow food. Hari and his team are now building Verdance, an autonomous, AI-powered system that makes it possible for anyone to grow fresh, sustainable produce year-round, anywhere in the world, simply at the press of a button.