PLENTY

Nate Storey was a plant scientist at the University of Wyoming who was obsessed with growing food more efficiently. He met Matt Barnard, a tech entrepreneur, and they founded Plenty in 2014.

The thesis: traditional farming is running out of arable land, using too much water, and producing food thousands of miles from where it's eaten. Vertical farming — growing plants in stacked layers inside warehouses — could produce more food in less space, closer to cities, year-round.

Plenty built highly automated indoor farms using LED lighting tuned to each plant's needs, machine learning to optimize growing conditions, and robotics for harvesting.

Plenty grows and sells produce — leafy greens, strawberries, and eventually other crops. The business model is: build indoor farms near major cities, grow produce year-round without pesticides, and sell to grocery retailers (Walmart is their biggest customer) at premium prices.

Revenue comes from direct produce sales. The premium is justified by longer shelf life, no pesticide residue, and consistent quality.

Leafy Greens — lettuce, arugula, kale, spinach grown indoors year-round. Strawberries — partnership with Driscoll's for indoor-grown strawberries.

Tigris Farm (Compton, CA) — their flagship facility producing 200x more per acre than traditional farming.

Landing Walmart as the anchor customer. In 2022, Plenty signed a deal with Walmart to supply leafy greens from their Compton farm to hundreds of California stores.

Having the world's largest retailer as a customer validated the model and provided guaranteed volume. The Driscoll's partnership for strawberries expanded the product line beyond leafy greens.

Unit economics. Growing food indoors with LED lights is energy-intensive and expensive.

Plenty has to prove it can produce food at prices competitive with traditional farming, which uses free sunlight and cheap land. Every major vertical farming competitor (AeroFarms, AppHarvest, Infarm) has gone bankrupt or collapsed.

Plenty has more capital but faces the same physics — electricity costs money.

SoftBank Vision Fund led the $400M Series D. Other investors include Jeff Bezos (personal investment), Eric Schmidt, DCM, Innovation Endeavors, and Driscoll's (the berry company).

Nearly $1 billion raised makes Plenty one of the most well-funded AgTech companies ever.