(Bloomberg) – Jeff Bezos, Softbank Group Corp. and Walmart have obtained a vertical farming business, Plenty Unlimited Inc., which has filed for bankruptcy through a lender-backed program to raise funds or sell the business.
The company sought court protection in Texas Sunday and listed more than $100 million in assets and liabilities in its Chapter 11 petition. The business went bankrupt through a deal that would explore the sale of large amounts of assets or alternative restructuring to raise additional cash.
Many have joined other vertical agricultural companies in recent years, as well as a range of agricultural companies, submitting So-Far Chapter 11 this year. Tree and plant supplier Tookap Farms LLC sought protection last month, followed by Soybean Seed Developer Benson Hill Inc., which filed Chapter 11 last week.
Bloomberg News reported that Plusy’s backers include New York investment firm One Madison Group, Walmart and Softbank’s Vision Fund, which has already pooled more than $400 million in funding to the company. According to Bloomberg, the company has been negotiating to raise additional financing that can almost wipe out exit shareholders.
A Madison Group and SoftBank branch has proposed to provide the company with as much as $20.7 million in additional financing, according to court documents. The lender earlier offered a massive $8.6 million bridge loan to prepare for a potential restructuring and preventing the company from closure, court documents said.
Fulty interim CEO Daniel Malech said in a court filing that the company has closed a farm in Compton, California, focused on growing leafy greens and shifted its focus to state-of-the-art strawberry growing facilities in Richmond, Virginia.
Malech said the fruit is a “high-end product that continues to outweigh the supply” and in November, nearly all construction work on Virginia farms was stopped, and the company was able to start producing high-quality strawberries.
Since its inception, the loss of prosperity has caused losses, and Malech blames bankruptcy on macroeconomic factors. He said that while the company has successfully improved its stock in the past, Lasten has been unable to do that since 2022.
The company plans to debut in bankruptcy court on Monday.
The case is the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern Texas Region, a large number of unlimited Texas LLC, No. 25-90105.
– Assistance with Kate Clark.
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