- General
- October 14, 2020
- 4 minutes read
Plenty Lands $140 Million Round
Matt Barnard, Chief Executive Officer, Plenty. Photo credit: World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary, licensed under Creative Commons Plenty, a…
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| Matt Barnard, Chief Executive Officer, Plenty.
Photo credit: World Economic Forum / Sikarin Thanachaiary, licensed under Creative Commons
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Plenty, a vertical farming upstart, has announced that it’s raised $140 million in Series D funding led by the SoftBank Vision Fund which was already a previous investor in the company, with participation from California-based berries retailer Driscoll’s. The new funding brings the total amount of capital raised by Plenty since its inception to over $500 million, funding that the company says will be used to fuel its growth plans, including the execution of a recently announced commercial collaboration that’ll see it grow farm produce for berries company Driscoll’s and grocery chain Albertsons.
Plenty’s $500 million+ raise makes it one of the most funded vertical farming upstarts globally. With vertical farming, the South San Francisco-based company is looking to make farming more efficient and churn out more farm produce with fewer resources like land and water. The company makes money by growing its own products on its indoor farm and selling it via retailers like Albertsons. This year, Plenty reached a deal to grow Driscoll’s’ popular flavorful strawberries year-round on its indoor farm, a quite big deal for the company.
In line with practices of sustainable farming, Plenty’s vertical farming operations are all powered 100% by renewable energy. The company currently operates a flagship production farm in South San Francisco and another Research and Development farm in the state of Wyoming. Currently, it’s in the midst of constructing what it says will be the world’s highest-output, vertical, indoor farm in the city of Compton, California.
