Signal 2: Plenty of What? Vertical Farming Innovators and Their Challenges

Previously, I examined the practice of vertical farming, on a macro-scale. This post will focus on one particular innovator in the field: Plenty.

Plenty is a San Francisco-based company at the forefront of the vertical farming. In particular, they have embraced the use of big data and machine learning. Their indoors farms have sensors throughout, capturing real-time data of plant conditions (temperature, LED light levels, water-flow, etc). All this data is fed into various algorithms, to be used by researchers and scientists to optimize conditions.

In total they have received $250 million in venture capital, which shows the level of optimism among funders. That money will hopefully help answer one of the first major questions about Plenty, and vertical farming in general: what exactly do they grow?

For all of this hype, Plenty has only really conquered the world of leafy greens: kale, lettuce, spinach. Their next big test is moving to fruits (strawberries) and other vegetables. If they can do this, it would be a huge step towards scaling their business model. I will definitely be on the lookout for any news on whether they accomplish this major task.

Source: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-produce-company-that-supplies-google-hqs-kitchen