🍓New Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing - Plenty Unlimited Texas LLC🍓
Plenty of incinerated venture cash, that's for sure.
On March 23, 2025, South SF-based Plenty Unlimited Inc. (“Plenty”), Plenty Unlimited Texas LLC (“Plenty Unlimited Texas”), and five affiliates (collectively, together with Plenty and Plenty Unlimited Texas, the “debtors”) filed chapter 11 bankruptcy cases in the Southern District of Texas (Judge Lopez). The debtors purport to be an “innovative Agricultural Technology (AgTech) with a platform focused on indoor vertical farming.”* And we agree; nothing quite says innovation like combining vertical farming (~2.6k years old) with four walls and a roof (~the-existence-of-humanity-years-old). Back in ‘23, bankruptcy courts were already busy harvesting several of the debtors’ brethren …
… and these debtors have finally arrived for their reaping. Here’s the natural-enough dish on them. Founded in ‘14, the debtors raised $941mm over 7 rounds through ‘22, with the largest clocking in at $400mm. Money poured in from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, and perennial-poor-decisionmaker SoftBank Group Corp. ($9984) (“SoftBank”), and it culminated in the debtors’ opening of a large-scale commercial farm, which, starting in May ‘23, began producing “leafy greens” straight out of Compton, CA, the home of N.W.A(ntioxidants).
But while the debtors had a lot of lettuce on hand, it was mostly literal by ‘23. Here’s interim CEO Daniel Malech explaining why they weren’t walking around “with a little bit of gold and a pager:”
“While the Debtors are poised to transform indoor farming in a number of ways, they are not immune from larger market dynamics and the challenges indoor farming has faced generally.”
“Market dynamics” and “challenges” like, we dunno … 🤔 … maybe being based in the United States — the country with the second-most cropland (166mm net hectares) and third-largest agricultural output ($474.2b in ‘22) in the motherf*cking world…!?!**
So, in December ‘24, about 1.5 years after opening, the farm … bought the farm. Which is a real shame because there was a massive missed opportunity to collab with Ice Cube — the copy practically writes itself!
Plus, the built-in scale! Just let it waft over you.
