Vertical farmer Dream Harvest—which raised $50 million in late 2021 to fund the expansion of its facility in Houston, Texas—is auctioning off  a large tranche of equipment that it bought in 2022, but has not yet deployed. According to Silicon Valley Disposition, which is handling the auction on January 14-16, the sale features equipment “purchased new in 2022 for $8 million, never put into production” including packaging equipment, harvesting equipment, LED lighting, water equipment cells, an irrigation system, containers and stands, trays, aluminum, and a communication system. CEO Zain Shauk—who founded Dream Harvest with Harmeet Singh in 2015— did not provide an update on the company’s performance or explain why it is selling off kit that it bought two years ago to expand the Houston facility. He told AgFunderNews: “We are selling some of our unused assets in Houston. We have what we need in our other facilities.”

Ag biotechnologies and robotics are two segments in the upstream supply chain that have shown significant resilience in 2024 and attracted large deals from investors. Another key trend this year has been the emergence of developing economics in Asia as important players in the sectors of ag biotech. Even if the United States remains the largest beneficiary of 2024 agtech VC investments, garnering 47% of worldwide funding in upstream supply chains, India and China are now also prominent when it comes to funding. In 2024, six of the top 15 agtech rounds were for companies from Asia, which shows clear signs of the growing maturity of startup ecosystems in the continent. While you enjoy the holidays, the AgFunderNews team has already started sifting through the piles of data involved in the creation of parent company AgFunder’s Global AgriFoodTech Investment report, coming up in early 2024