Agriculture Startup Failures

Selling to 7 million farmers sounds massive until you realize each one costs more to serve than they spend.

The French insect protein unicorn raised 372M euros, built the world largest insect farm, and entered receivership in 2024 as energy costs and market adoption destroyed the business case.

A $3.9B farm data unicorn that couldn't translate farmer trust into sustainable economics.

Rural India's last-mile hero ran out of road when impact capital retreated.

An Earthshot Prize winner that couldn't escape the fatal tension between impact and profit.

Methane-eating microbes for farms: scientifically sound, commercially impossible to sell.

India's farm data pioneer ran out of runway trying to sell SaaS to smallholder farmers globally.

Argentine agtech marketplace raised $23M to be the Mercado Libre of agricultural inputs in Latin America—then shut down commercial operations in 2024 after failing to achieve marketplace liquidity in a sector dominated by local dealer relationships.

Raised $60M to photograph every crop on earth, sold in distress to a tractor maker.

3,000 fishers digitized, zero path to commercial sustainability.

Guatemalan agritech built for farmers who didn't have smartphones, then lost crops to drought.

The Berlin vertical farming unicorn raised 604M dollars and shut most operations in August 2023 after energy prices made indoor farming economics impossible.

The indoor vertical farming startup that raised $472 million from Goldman Sachs, CPPIB, and Google — then shut down overnight in March 2023 when a new funding round could not be closed

The Canadian precision agriculture unicorn raised $290M, IPO'd on the TSX in 2021, and filed for CCAA protection in 2023 after farmers refused to pay for data-driven insights.

AI climate control for specialty crops failed when the hardware kept killing the plants.

The vertical farming pioneer that turned a 70,000 sq ft Newark steel mill into the world's largest indoor farm — and proved the model couldn't pay its electricity bill

The agtech marketplace connecting Indonesian farmers to buyers — undone by archipelago logistics

Brilliant drought prediction, terrible unit economics in Europe's most fragmented farm market.

A $107M agri-drone pioneer that pivoted itself into oblivion.

The B2B produce surplus marketplace raised $23M to connect farms with food manufacturers — and shut down when the market wasn't ready for digital produce procurement.

Farm management software that couldn't grow beyond Australia's conservative farming community.

Agritech water-saver that discovered $800 IoT sensors and rural connectivity don't mix.

Solar-powered desert farming was technically brilliant but commercially bankrupt.

Precision agriculture for Colombia's poorest farmers failed on both connectivity and willingness to pay.

Kenya's smallholder credit platform drowned in drought-driven loan defaults.

IoT for Norwegian fishermen—great tech, wrong culture, wrong waters.

Predicting droughts couldn't save them from their own data dependency drought.

Sensors under salmon cages drowned in unit economics.

Impact agri-fintech that couldn't hedge against Mexico's 2020 southern drought.

Modular vertical farming for restaurants — killed by hardware economics and COVID in 2020.

Pioneer US ag spray drone operator crushed by subsidized DJI hardware.

Ag-drone analytics pioneer undone by farmers refusing to pay for software.

Uber for tractors in Africa hit a growth ceiling at a fraction of its potential

London's underground farm growing microgreens 33 meters below the city in former WWII tunnels raised £8M and entered administration in 2023 as energy costs proved unworkable.

Kimbal Musk's indoor farm that couldn't grow its way to profit

French agricultural equipment marketplace could not achieve the transaction volume to sustain operations

AI yield forecasting for corn and soybean farmers — outcompeted by Bayer Climate Corp

Blockchain-based crop traceability startup that raised grants but could not commercialize in smallholder markets.

Israeli computer vision agritech acquired by Valmont and product discontinued

Solar-powered agricultural weed robot raised $15M but farm economics could not support the lease price

SoftBank-backed vertical farming unicorn that promised to grow produce anywhere with no weather or pesticides and filed for bankruptcy after discovering the electricity bill.

AI-driven crop disease prediction for American row crop farmers

Norwegian-American indoor farming company growing leafy greens hydroponically in Orlando and multiple US cities before filing for bankruptcy in 2022

Montana greenhouse pioneer could not grow past SPAC hype

Nairobi agricultural data startup raised $85M from Google Ventures to predict crop yields globally and shut down in 2023 when the next funding round could not close.

Nigerian agricultural crowdfunding platform collapsed after failing to pay farmers and investors

The farm management software pioneer was absorbed into Corteva's ag-data empire

Kenya agtech B2B inputs marketplace backed by IFC that spent nine years trying to digitize last-mile fertilizer distribution before shutting down in 2022.

Silicon Valley agtech startup that built the world's first autonomous apple-picking robot but shut down when commercial deployment proved too expensive.

Fifth Season raised $35M to grow perfect salad greens in a Pittsburgh robot farm — then shut abruptly in 2022, laying off 100 employees with days of notice

AI-powered autonomous weeding robot raised $45M but farm economics could not justify robot costs

Iron Ox built autonomous robotic greenhouses backed by $100M — then discovered that robot-picked lettuce costs more to produce than any grocery customer will pay

Ghanaian digital grain marketplace could not survive the cash conversion cycle in smallholder farming

Cocoa-free chocolate startup raised $30M but retailers refused to pay the sustainability premium

Agricultural data SaaS platform that raised 85 million dollars to become Bloomberg for food systems but shut down after failing to monetize its data moat.

Iowa's farm financial analytics startup was absorbed by a crop insurance platform as ag-data consolidated

Indian agri-commerce platform connecting farmers to buyers that raised $24M but could not monetize the marketplace.

Kenyan agri-input credit platform could not collect from smallholder farmers at scale

UK livestock data platform raised 8 million pounds to digitize beef and dairy farm management and shut down when the Series B market closed in 2023.

Kenya farm-to-retailer distribution startup backed by IFC and Creadev that raised $50M and shed over half its workforce in 2022-2023 as perishable logistics economics proved fatal.

Biotech ag-tech unicorn worth $3.5B imploded as grain marketplace and carbon credits both failed