Infarm raised $500m, and then it all disappeared

Infarm’s startup journey started out like many others: as an experiment. 

Its Israeli cofounders Osnat Michaeli, Erez Galonska and his brother Guy Galonska, who had settled into a modest apartment in a multicultural, residential area of Berlin in 2012, had the bright idea to grow crops indoors using nutrient-packed water rather than soil. Their vision was to make cities more self-sufficient by bringing urban-dwellers fresh produce grown in farms on their doorsteps. 

A few trips to a hardware store and hours of tinkering later, the trio had built a contraption. Yes, it was leaky. It was inefficient. But it would form the basis of the company they would later grow to over 1,000 employees across 10 countries — and raise nearly $500m for, scoring a $1bn price tag from investors.

Then the company went silent. 

This year Infarm was declared insolvent in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, and it exited Denmark and France. Its coriander, basil and sage have disappeared from Aldi in Germany and Marks and Spencer in the UK. Its flagship growing facility — the size of one and a half football pitches — in Bedford, England, has permanently closed. And the number of employees listed on LinkedIn has halved since December 2021. 

Infarm declined to comment for this piece, and said it does not "comment on any rumours, speculations or opinions."

So, how does a $1bn company just disappear?

The vision 

Hydroponics — growing plants without soil — isn’t a new idea. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are one of the first-ever cited examples of the technique from thousands of years ago, but the actual science was not greatly developed until the 20th century. 

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