Automated vertical farming startup Vertical Future up for sale after posting $13m loss

Vertical Future Up For Sale | Jennifer Marston |

IMAGE: Vertical Future cofounder Jamie Burrows.
Image credit: Vertical Future

Vertical farming startup Vertical Future is for sale on an insolvency market after posting pre-tax losses that exceed £10 million ($13.2 million).

“Like others in the vertical farming sector, we have faced significant headwinds in a difficult capital environment,” the company said in a statement. “The board continues to work hard to support customers and partners while considering the best path forward. We will update stakeholders in due course.”

AgFunderNews has reached out to Vertical Future for comment and will update this post accordingly.

Founded in 2016, the UK-based company began life growing leafy greens in vertical farms before pivoting to making vertical farming infrastructure that promised “hands-free automation from seed to harvest.” More than 90% of this system was designed and manufactured in house, and it was supported by DIANA, a proprietary SaaS offering.

Forward Fooding named Vertical Future the “#1 CEA company” in its FoodTech500 list this year and number 33 overall. Meanwhile, the company has also made headlines for its work developing grow systems for space, an effort that won Vertical Future a £1.5 million ($2 million) grant from the UK Space Agency in 2024.

Struggle to raise additional funding

Despite these milestones, the company reportedly struggled to raise additional funding. SFC Capital, Pula Investments and various angel investors have all backed Vertical Future, which has raised around £37 million ($49 million) to date.

Vertical Future joins the long list of indoor ag startups that have declared bankruptcy or shuttered operations in the last few years, including InFarm, which entered into administration in 2023; Freight Farms, which ceased operations in April (but now has new owners); Fifth Season, another automation-focused operation; and onetime unicorns Bowery and Plenty.

It’s not all bad news in the sector, however. US-based Oishii raked in $150 million in Series B funds last year and just opened a R&D center in Japan for indoor farming systems. Container vertical farming company Square Roots has also expanded to Japan, where it will operate a network for farms that combine indoor ag tech with traditional farming methods, according to the company. Finally, Grow Up Farms, another UK startup, keeps trucking along, helped in no small part by its model of running off 100% renewable energy.

“It’s typically fairly capital intensive and requires significant energy,” Eduardo Clemente of Grow Up Farms investor Generate Capital said in a recent interview with AgFunderNews.

“The combination of the two means that in order to be able to reach reasonable payback, you need to achieve high volumes. In order to achieve high volumes, you need to produce at a cost that is competitive with the mass market.”

Original Article: https://agfundernews.com/automated-vertical-farming-startup-vertical-future-up-for-sale-after-posting-13m-loss

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