High-dollar horticulture

You may not grow and sell tomatoes and other veggies, but like so many industry pundits have pointed out, they’re the “gateway drug to gardening” and other landscape and plant interest. That’s why it’s important to note that Epic Gardening, an online gardening site founded by Kevin Espiritu, harvested an investment of $17.5 million by The Chernin Group (TCG) to finance its continued growth and expansion.

Founded in 2013, Epic Gardening has become a resource for millions of enthusiasts and aspiring gardeners who want to grow their own food and learn gardening techniques. Originally started as a hobby for Espiritu, Epic Gardening has grown into a robust content platform for the gardening curious with more than 3 million social followers, 10 million lifetime podcast downloads and 10 million blog visits in 2021.

"The mission of Epic Gardening is simple, but ambitious: teach the world to grow,” Kevin says in a released statement. “Cultivating plants has been a core part of human life for thousands of years, but info on how to learn the skill set is sorely outdated and inaccessible. My aim with Epic Gardening has always been to ‘learn in public’, and showcase my growing journey on modern platforms, directly to my audience. This investment from TCG will help accelerate that mission dramatically.”

Espiritu is building a network of enthusiastic, relatable, and experienced gardeners to add different growing perspectives and expertise on the Epic Gardening platform. His gardening assistant turned content creator, Jacques Lyakov, amassed a sizable following within a few months, and Chris Chung of Vancouver-based Fluent Garden will produce content to add to Epic’s cold-climate gardening offering.

“From a consumer point of view, learning how to garden with Kevin and team as your companions is an incredibly rich and rewarding experience,” says Luke Beatty, partner at TCG.

The investment will be used to bolster Epic’s operations, commerce, and content teams and aggressively scale its offering of gardening products and content. Check out Kevin’s site at www.epicgardening.com.