By Jonathan Randles | Bloomberg
Plenty Unlimited Inc., a vertical farming business that’s drawn backing from Jeff Bezos, SoftBank Group Corp. and Walmart, has filed for bankruptcy with a lender-backed plan to either raise capital or sell the business.
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The South San Francisco-based company on Sunday sought court protection in Texas listing more than $100 million in assets and liabilities on its Chapter 11 petition. The business comes to bankruptcy with a deal that will explore a sale of Plenty’s assets or an alternative restructuring that would raise additional cash.
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Plenty joins other vertical farming companies that have gone bankrupt in recent years as well as a string of agriculture firms that have filed Chapter 11 so-far this year. TreeSap Farms LLC, a tree and plant supplier, sought protection last month followed by soybean seed developer Benson Hill Inc. which filed Chapter 11 last week.
Plenty’s backers include New York investment firm One Madison Group, Walmart and SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which has funneled more than $400 million into the company, Bloomberg News reported in January. The company had been in talks to raise additional financing that would virtually wipe out exiting shareholders, Bloomberg reported.
Affiliates of One Madison Group and Softbank have offered to provide the business with as much as $20.7 million in additional financing, according to court documents. The lenders earlier provided Plenty with an $8.6 million bridge loan to prepare for a potential restructuring and prevent the company from shutting down, court papers say.
Plenty Interim Chief Executive Officer Daniel Malech said in a court filing that the company has closed a farm in Compton, California focused on growing leafy greens and is shifting its focus toward a state-of-the-art strawberry-growing facility in Richmond, Virginia.
The fruit is “a premium product for which demand persistently exceeds supply” and the company has been able to begin producing high-quality strawberries after nearly all construction work on the Virginia farm was halted in November, Malech said.
Plenty has incurred losses since its inception and Malech blamed the bankruptcy on macroeconomic factors. Although the company has been successful in raising equity in the past, Plenty has been unable to do so since 2022, he said.
The company is scheduled to make its first appearance in bankruptcy court on Monday.
The case is Plenty Unlimited Texas LLC, number 25-90105, in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
–With assistance from Kate Clark.
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