AppHarvest Jumps 6%; Appoints Amazon Veteran

(RTTNews) - Shares of AppHarvest, Inc. (APPH) are rising more than 6% Monday morning at $12.93.

AppHarvest is an applied technology company developing and operating high-tech indoor farms, designed to grow non-GMO, chemical pesticide-free produce, using up to 90 percent less water than open-field agriculture.

AppHarvest today said Amazon veteran Mark Keller is joining the company as SVP, Software Applications Platform.

Keller has a proven record, that includes launching Amazon's first four large-scale Kiva robotics sortable warehouses and the PrimeNow Warehouse Management Software used to run the company's one-hour fulfillment centers.

"Having Mark join will accelerate our efforts as we train our intelligent robot, Virgo, to harvest multiple crops—ranging from tomatoes and cucumbers to more delicate fruits such as strawberries—as we move toward more AI-informed growing. These insights collected and analyzed, then fed into AI, will be the true game changer for us since every piece of fruit is an outcome that resulted from the many variables in the growing process," said AppHarvest founder and CEO Jonathan Webb.

APPH has traded in the range of $9.80- $42.90 in the last 52 weeks.