80 Acres Farms
- 🦄Became a unicornFeb 2025
- 📈Peak valuation$1.2 Billion ’25
- 💔Became a UnitardAug 2026
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
How it happened
80 Acres Farms grew salads, herbs, microgreens and tomatoes in fully automated indoor farms around Hamilton, Ohio, and got further than almost anyone in vertical farming — five farms at its peak, running on renewable power and supplying more than 18,000 retail locations. A $115M raise in February 2025 carried it to a $1.2B post-money valuation, and that August it merged with Soli Organic to form a roughly $200M-revenue indoor-farming network under co-founder Mike Zelkind. The same economics that killed Plenty, Bowery, AeroFarms and Infarm caught up anyway: energy and capital costs too heavy for thin produce margins, against investors who had stopped funding the category. Zelkind announced the wind-down on August 3, 2026, saying the company could not secure the capital required to continue — about 300 jobs, most of them in the Cincinnati area, went with it.
Source: Capstone Partners AgTech Market Update (Jun 2025): Feb 2025 raise of $115M brought post-money valuation to $1.2B — the only published valuation, as the company never disclosed one itself. AgFunderNews/Local 12: wind-down announced Aug 3, 2026 after raising $350–400M since 2015
