JD Vance, Martha Stewart were on the board of this indoor vertical farming startup. It went public in 2020 via a Covid-era SPAC (Novus Capital Corp), in 2021 raised $700m then went public at a $1b valuation, was sued by shareholders for securities fraud in 2022 (Vance had left in 2021), then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023.
In comforting news, post-bankruptcy, the founder and CEO of AppHarvest has gone on to start…uhh…The Nuclear Company?[0] Hopefully when it's ready they'll invite McConnell back to flip the switch.
Farmland is stupidly expensive. The equipment and inputs (fertilizer, fuel) are stupidly expensive. Growing outside, you are forever at the whims of the weather rather than being able to control each detail of production. Fields inevitably have parts that have variable soil and water conditions. When you look at what a country like the Netherlands has done with greenhouse growing, it's pretty compelling. Was AppHarvest the answer? Apparently not, but that doesn't negate that there are indoor models that work.
For some context on the scale of what's going on in the netherlands, see this article for some lovely photos[0]
Mind that these aren't startups either. These are old companies making money. My grandfather used to talk about working in greenhouses exactly like these.
Which indoor models work? They might be viable for boutique produce that is highly perishable. But the notion that this could ever work for bulk staple crops is just stupid.
A lot of the bell peppers and tomatoes for sale in Germany, especially in the winter, are grown in greenhouses in the Netherlands. They’re only somewhat more expensive than the ones grown outside in Spain at the peak of their harvests.
But wheat and potatoes? No, those are strictly outdoor things.
already mentioned, but the netherlands (pop 18m) is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world (after the US) — Driven largely by high-tech greenhouse operations.
Australia has a number of large veggie producers that use glasshouses for growing and have been around and successful for many years. Look up Flavorite and Perfection Fresh for two examples.
Perfection seem to be using a lot of foil tunnels: https://www.perfection.com.au/our-farms/perfection-berries-r... Which makes sense, because they're cheap and easy to construct. But for some reason "indoor farming" startups don't seem very interested in taking the simplest solution that could possibly qualify as "indoors" and scaling it up.
JD Vance, Martha Stewart were on the board of this indoor vertical farming startup. It went public in 2020 via a Covid-era SPAC (Novus Capital Corp), in 2021 raised $700m then went public at a $1b valuation, was sued by shareholders for securities fraud in 2022 (Vance had left in 2021), then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppHarvest
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/appharvest-indoor-farming-bankrup...
[2]: Coverage of Plenty, Bowery, AppHarvest and AeroFarms https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/24/vertical-farming-company-p...
In comforting news, post-bankruptcy, the founder and CEO of AppHarvest has gone on to start…uhh…The Nuclear Company?[0] Hopefully when it's ready they'll invite McConnell back to flip the switch.
0: https://www.thenuclearcompany.com
Needs (2023) - discussed previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34959649
Thanks!
The vertical farming bubble is finally popping - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34959649 - Feb 2023 (270 comments)
Also, "Exposé". Grammar don't check otherwise.
I don’t get it. How could a high tech green house ever be more profitable than free sunshine, dirt
Your product gets, what? Max $2.50/# retail?
Farmland is stupidly expensive. The equipment and inputs (fertilizer, fuel) are stupidly expensive. Growing outside, you are forever at the whims of the weather rather than being able to control each detail of production. Fields inevitably have parts that have variable soil and water conditions. When you look at what a country like the Netherlands has done with greenhouse growing, it's pretty compelling. Was AppHarvest the answer? Apparently not, but that doesn't negate that there are indoor models that work.
For some context on the scale of what's going on in the netherlands, see this article for some lovely photos[0]
Mind that these aren't startups either. These are old companies making money. My grandfather used to talk about working in greenhouses exactly like these.
[0] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/glowing-dutch-greenhou...
Which indoor models work? They might be viable for boutique produce that is highly perishable. But the notion that this could ever work for bulk staple crops is just stupid.
Farmland isn't that expensive.
A lot of the bell peppers and tomatoes for sale in Germany, especially in the winter, are grown in greenhouses in the Netherlands. They’re only somewhat more expensive than the ones grown outside in Spain at the peak of their harvests.
But wheat and potatoes? No, those are strictly outdoor things.
already mentioned, but the netherlands (pop 18m) is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world (after the US) — Driven largely by high-tech greenhouse operations.
Australia has a number of large veggie producers that use glasshouses for growing and have been around and successful for many years. Look up Flavorite and Perfection Fresh for two examples.
Perfection seem to be using a lot of foil tunnels: https://www.perfection.com.au/our-farms/perfection-berries-r... Which makes sense, because they're cheap and easy to construct. But for some reason "indoor farming" startups don't seem very interested in taking the simplest solution that could possibly qualify as "indoors" and scaling it up.
many products that are wanted year round in some freshness are seasonal and limited, tomatoes being the canonical example.
[dead]