Urban Plants

Company description

Urban Plants has built what it calls a "Biotany System" — a NASA-inspired, wall-mounted hydroponic growing system that uses no electricity and no plastics, paired with a proprietary liquid fertilizer ("worm tea") made from worm castings and customized to specific plants. The pitch spans several angles at once: making hydroponic gardening mainstream and low-cost for food deserts and degraded-soil regions, creating job and caretaking roles for young adults with special education needs, and — perhaps most unusually — researching how soil-eating worms survive and behave in simulated lunar and Martian regolith, as a step toward a future federal SBIR/STTR research proposal on off-world agriculture. Urban Plants took second place and a $20,000 grant at the 10th Startup Texas Demo Day in September 2025, part ofthe SBIR/STTR Innovation Competition run by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) in partnership with UTRGV's Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center (ECC) and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES).

Urban Plants is closely connected to The Partnership Institute (profiled separately in this set) — the Best family's Brownsville education-and-research venture. Anita Best, who holds a BAAS and leads the botany/oligochaetology (worm science) side of the business, and her son Sebastian Best, the engineering lead, co-founded Urban Plants in June 2025 alongside Alexander Tolentino, who leads the hydroponics work; Douglas Best is involved through The Partnership Institute's management role. The team has been developing the underlying system design for about two years. As part of its workforce plan, Urban Plants intends to hire and train young adults with special education needs (SPED) as worm caretakers, and has set aside equity stakes for Expanding Frontiers, a Brownsville nonprofit providing technical assistance, and for The Partnership Institute for management support.

Founders: Douglas Best, Anita Best, Sebastian Best, and Alexander Tolentino

Program: Presented at both of BCIC's September 2025 Startup Texas pitch nights — the September 9 Emerging Industries pitch night (presented by Ciara Perez) and the September 11 SBIR/STTR Innovation Competition pitch night (presented by Douglas Best)