Bits, Bots, Berries & Bees: The deep tech vertical farm, Oishii

Added on 19 December 2024

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Bits, Bots, Berries & Bees: The deep tech vertical farm, Oishii

All Photos Courtesy Oishii

Revolution or reality check? As vertical farming captures imaginations with its promise of transforming agriculture, the industry stands at a critical crossroads. Through 2023-2024, several heavily funded players have shuttered operations such as AeroFarms and Infarm. Yet amid this dramatic industry shakeout, well-positioned players are finding success, particularly in Europe where venture funding has begun flowing again. The pattern suggests a crucial industry maturation: while billions in venture capital initially fuelled rapid expansion, only those companies with robust business models and technological advantages are emerging from this period of consolidation.

For a nascent industry, this is not unprecedented. The dot-com bubble of the late 1990s saw over 450 tech companies go public in 1999 alone. When the bubble burst, nearly half of them failed and the industry lost $5 trillion in market value. Yet from those ashes emerged today’s tech giants, companies that combined innovative technology with sustainable business models. The question now is: which vertical farming companies will survive and thrive through this market correction? For a glimpse of what that might look like, we need only visit New Jersey, where an unlikely success story is unfolding.

From Factory to Farm

In a former Budweiser factory transformed into a high-tech agricultural facility, strawberries grow in perfect vertical rows under LED lights, tended by a choreographed dance of robots and bees. This is Oishii’s new Amatelas Farm – a 237,400-square-foot testament to defying industry conventions.