Tag: vertical farming

Vertical farming company Plenty files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $1B | TechCrunch

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Vertical farming company Plenty has filed for bankruptcy, the company said in a press release on Monday.

In its statement, Plenty said it has received a commitment for $20.7 million in debtor-in-possession financing as part of a proposed restructuring plan. It plans to continue to operate a strawberry farm in Virginia and a plant science research and development (R&D) center in Wyoming.

Debtor-in-possession financing is financing for firms in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Since its 2014 inception, South San Francisco-based Plenty has raised nearly $1 billion in funding from a variety of investors, including SoftBank Investment Advisers, Walmart, Bezos Expeditions, and Jeff Bezos as an angel investor.

Its last known valuation was $1.9 billion at the time of a $400 million Series E fundraise in January 2022, according to PitchBook.

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On ten years of ‘The Vertical Farm’ | TechCrunch

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Roughly two hours pass between my initial email and our first Zoom chat — on a Sunday, no less. I skip the post-gym shower and pop on a baseball cap, because I’m not sure when the opportunity will present itself again.

After more than two decades of espousing the benefits of vertical farming around the world, it seems Dickson Despommier is still every bit as eager to talk about the subject as I am. This is likely due, in no small part, to the tenth anniversary edition of The Vertical Farm, which arrived late last year. In a culture that seems almost irrevocably hung up on anniversaries, this occasion feels earned, largely due to everything that transpired in that intervening decade.

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Elon Musk’s brother wants to pioneer the future of farming | CNN

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Plant-based foods are all the rage right now, and vertical farms are capitalizing on the trend.

Vertical farming is an indoor farming method in which crops are grown in stacked layers, often without soil. The practice is becoming more popular and important as urban populations grow dramatically and available farmland decreases.

While vertical farming isn’t a new concept, these eco-friendly indoor farms are now rapidly expanding

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AeroFarms Grows Plants Without Soil For Cities of the Future | Bloomberg

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imagesAeroFarms has developed a vertical farming system that can grow organic baby leafy greens in urban settings. They’re doing it using aeroponics — the process of growing plants in mist without any soil — and plan to launch a branded product from a new 80,000-square-foot warehouse in Newark, New Jersey. AeroFarms CEO and Co-Founder David Rosenberg talks to Bloomberg’s Sam Grobart about how the company is bringing their produce mainstream for Bloomberg’s “The Year Ahead: 2015” series.

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