Infarm

How it happened

Infarm placed modular growing units in supermarkets and became Europe's first vertical-farming unicorn, topping $1B in a December 2021 Series D led by the Qatar Investment Authority. Soaring energy prices and capital intensity made the model untenable; Infarm exited Europe and entered insolvency in 2023, its IP later valued at around one euro. Employee reviews describe a company that chased hypergrowth with no path to profit: insiders said the founder-CEOs burned startup capital on over-optimistic projections, then shed over 500 jobs across multiple redundancy rounds and site closures — some staff let go just after Christmas on three weeks' notice. Reviewers also recounted the waste behind the sustainability branding, and managers quitting as morale collapsed.

Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.