Mahmud Kamani-backed vertical farm collapses after failing to find a buyer
A vertical farming group backed by the likes of Boohoo co-founder Mahmud Kamani has collapsed after being unable to find a buyer, owing creditors nearly £8m.
London-based Vertical Future had raised more than £37m in capital since it was founded in 2016, courting high-profile investors including Kamani, Charles Tyrwhitt founder Nick Wheeler and World First founder Jonathan Quin.
The loss-making firm had sought to raise £60m in a funding round in 2023, but faced a cash crunch after it was only able to raise £9.9m from investors, fresh administrator documents show.
“The level of funding generated from this round was lower than previous due to a lack of confidence in the sector as a result of failures within the global industry, this reduction in funding and increased electricity costs made trading circumstances difficult and resulted in a series of redundancies over the coming years,” administrators said.
The company saw its losses surpass £10m in 2024 after turnover tumbled from £6.7m to just £692,000.
Vertical Future later approached a group of Saudi investors for more cash and were able to secure a £3.2m loan – but the company later looked set to default and were unable to renegotiate the terms.
The firm put itself up for sale in July but was unable to find a buyer, administrators said.
Vertical Future therefore entered administration in August, leading to the loss of several dozen jobs. It owed creditors a total of £7.9m at the point of its demise, filings show.
Its assets and intellectual property were bought for just £670,000 by a group of companies ultimately owned by British tech entrepreneur Tahir Mohsan.
The sale comes following a fleet of vertical farming collapses with firms struggling to turn a profit amid competition from low-margin, heavily-subsidised traditional farms.
In May, the Jones Food Company, which had been behind the UK’s biggest vertical farm, plunged into administration after failing to find new investors, while US-based Aerofarms filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
French rival Agricool also went into receivership that year, while Infarm closed its operations in Europe, leading to 500 staff redundancies.