We covered the basics of Vertical Farming in our previous article. You can read it here. The opportunity in Vertical Farming is not as huge as FinTech but the sector is well covered. Since 2015, Vertical Farming has received over USD 1 Billion in funds which are expected to increase to more than USD 1.5 Billion between 2020 and 2025.
Let’s look at some of the interesting startups in Vertical Farming
Plenty
One of the biggest names in Vertical Farming startups is a USA West Coast startup. It uses indoor farms and claims to use less than 5% of water and less than 1% of land compared to conventional farms.
Website – plenty.ag
Funding – USD 401 million
Investors – 10
Aerofarms
Another big name in Vertical Farming is a USA East Coast startup. It uses indoor farms and uses proprietary hydroponics methods to grow produce. It claims to have 390x productivity and uses 95% less water than a conventional farm – along with zero pesticides.
Website – aerofarms.com
Funding – USD 238 million
Investors – 14
Iron Ox
Iron Ox is trying to change the way in which other vertical farms work – by running the farms almost completely by robots. While they are not on the same scale as other major startups in vertical farming, they are trying to reduce the labor dependency of farming with custom robots.
Website – ironox.com/
Funding – USD 25.3 million
Investors – 15
Unfold
This is a joint venture of epic proportions – Leaps by Bayer, Bayer AG’s impact investment arm, and Singapore-headquartered Temasek. The result is a new company – Unfold. Unlike other vertical farms, this company would focus on genetics and research newer varieties of seeds that work best in vertical farms.
Website – unfold.ag
Funding – USD 30 million
Investors – 2
This list above merely shows the variety of approaches to Vertical Farming and is nowhere close to highlight the focus on one of the fastest urban farming trends in the world. Due to higher upfront costs, Vertical Farms face huge challenges in scaling. However, they have started employing innovative methods to cut down on operational and environmental costs to make their approach sustainable in the long term.
Also Read : Vertical Farming – a new rage in farm-to-plate startups
