GrowUp Group Limited has sold its entire shareholding in GrowUp Farms to Sun Capital through a pre-packaged administration process, executed on 16 December 2025. The transaction followed unsuccessful efforts to secure new capital in a challenging controlled environment agriculture investment landscape. GrowUp Farms' operations and 83 employees remain unaffected under new ownership. The sale includes the transfer of the GrowUp Farms brand, intellectual property and related assets. However, 30 roles at GrowUp Group were made redundant, whilst 12 employees transferred to the buyer. The deal reflects broader capital constraints facing the controlled environment agriculture sector, particularly for asset-intensive vertical farming models. Richard Harrison and Ryan Grant of Interpath were appointed joint administrators to GrowUp Group Limited to facilitate the transaction.

In many ways, onetime unicorn Plenty’s highly publicized 90% valuation slash in January felt like the end of a long, drawn-out death sentence for large-scale vertical farms growing leafy greens. But was it actually?. Events from the last couple years would suggest as much, with companies that had raised hundreds of millions ceasing operations, declaring insolvency and the like. Apart from Oishii, which grows strawberries, not a single vertical farming company raised north of $100 million in 2024. The highest funding figure for a leafy greens grower in that year was $59.5 million raised by Vertical Harvest