The future of vertical farming is still bright

Despite the spate of recent setbacks, high-rise farming has room for growth, given food security trends.

- Lara Williams

Vertical farming was once so sexy that it tempted the likes of Natalie Portman, Lewis Hamilton and Justin Timberlake to join venture capital and private equity firms buying into high-tech facilities cultivating crops in stacked layers using soil-free growing techniques.

Those investments have turned ugly recently - but there are still reasons for optimism about the future of high-rise food.

The headlines are not encouraging: Jones Food Company, which opened its biggest farm in Gloucestershire in 2024 and had Ocado Group as a major shareholder, went into administration in May. Vertical Future, a London-based equipment supplier, sought protection from creditors in August, owing £7.9 million (S$13.6 million) to unsecured lenders.

That follows US-based Aerofarms and AppHarvest, which both filed for bankruptcy in 2023, and Plenty Unlimited, which entered Chapter 11 proceedings in March not long after raising almost US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) in venture funding. Celeb-backed Bowery Farming ceased operations at the end of 2024.

About US$2.2 billion of capital was raised by now-bankrupt vertical-agriculture companies. As a result, it has been hard for the remaining firms to generate more financing.

Analysis from consultancy firm EcoTech Capital found that after raising almost US$8 billion globally between 2018 and 2022, indoor farming companies subsequently attracted less than US$1 billion by the end of 2024. But as the hype fades, concern about food security is keeping interest in vertical farming alive.