5 Tips for Raising Capital for Vertical Farms
October 7, 2025 
Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock
CEA growers seeking to launch, expand, or upgrade their business in today’s funding environment must navigate a unique set of circumstances.
Heightened investor scrutiny is placing a greater emphasis on sustainable profitability over massive buildouts, and elevated borrowing costs are demanding much sharper financial planning than they did in the past. Tariff uncertainty isn’t helping, making it much more difficult to forecast purchasing and construction costs.
However, fundraising for vertical farms is especially complicated.
No one understands this better than Nona Yehia, co-founder and CEO of Vertical Harvest. Her company operates a vertical farm in Wyoming and opened a second farm in Maine in June 2025.
In a recent conversation with CEAg World, Yehia shared five tips for securing capital in today’s challenging vertical farming environment.
1. Grow Slow
“The big vertical farms that have preceded us, they made big mistakes with big money in big farms,” Yehia explains. “Vertical Harvest and others have made big mistakes in small farms with a relatively small amount of money, so that when you do go big and start raising money, you have a lot more intelligence around your business model.”
Instead of pitch decks that boast enormous, high-tech facilities, investors want to see projects that embrace phased scaling. This approach lowers the risk profile for funders by demonstrating a rational and realistic path to profitability.
Yehia practices what she preaches. The Wyoming site was built as an incubator to prove the vertical farm concept. Now, nine years later, the Maine site is 20 times larger and built on the valuable lessons learned from the incubator farm.
A sensible business plan that highlights staged expansion will help build confidence among lenders and investors who want to ensure their funds will be deployed responsibly.
2. Focus on Food, Not Tech
No matter how technologically advanced an indoor farm is, it’s still a farm, and plant production should remain the backbone of the business.
Early vertical farms focused more on cultivation technology than the food they promised to grow, and it came back to haunt them.
“Valuations for these businesses were probably more aligned with tech valuations than the actual farms,” Yehia says. “Early vertical farms based their raises on the promise of complete farm automation, pitching it as a valuable addition to growing food.”
When this didn’t pan out, further raises left companies short on cash, because, as Yehia explains, “the valuations were so inflated on a product with the margins of lettuce.”
If you plan to grow food, develop a compelling business strategy to show how you’ll do that successfully. If you can’t grow at a profit, no one cares about the technology.
3. Highlight Operational Experience
The early days of vertical farming attracted venture capital and family offices that were interested in addressing the food system at scale.
“There was a real appetite that was outside the typical model of venture,” Yehia says. “This created a bubble for vertical farming, where you didn’t need to show or have any operational experience in the field in order to raise a ton of money.”
However, this lack of experience caused early vertical farms to burn through cash without having much to show for it. Avoid this scenario by recruiting a group of experienced farmers, greenhouse growers, or indoor cultivators as part of your operations team.
Put succinctly, it’s much easier for a greenhouse grower to adapt to a vertical farm than it is for a tech company to learn how to grow food.
4. Clarify the ROI Timeframe
Vertical farms may not be an appropriate match for funders seeking a quick ROI.
“I think the ultimate challenge is having the time to be able to prove out the business case,” Yehia says about vertical farms “They’re not like something you can invest in and get a huge return right away, which is the venture model.”
Compared to greenhouses, vertical farm ROI requires more patience. Align your business with investors that understand these time requirements and have the financial fortitude to play the long game.
“I do think that vertical farming will prove its place in the marketplace,” Nona says, “but it’s going to take more time.”
5. Stay Flexible
No plan is perfect, but the ability to pivot in changing times can mean the difference between a successful start-up and a struggling vertical farm.
Initially, Vertical Harvest raised money through the bond market until high interest rates upended that option. The team had to pivot quickly and get creative. They focused on the strength of their public-private partnerships and raised $48 million through what Yehia calls “one of the largest USDA loan guarantee programs.”
Smart operators extend this flexibility to their production and marketing plans, as well.
“At the beginning, most vertical farms were only dealing in lettuce, because that’s what greenhouses did at the time,” Nona explains.
She’s quick to point out that Vertical Harvest also grows lettuce. “That’s mandatory for us,” she says, “but then we have more niche projects, like petite greens and microgreens.
“It’s about the omnichannel approach,” she continues. “You don’t only focus on culinary or retail, you’re flexible and you have a portfolio of customers. I think that’s another really important aspect of what will make a farm successful, that you can bounce with the variations of the market.”
For vertical farming to secure a stronghold in our food production system, it must first prove that it can be profitable. Fortunately, despite the sector’s unique fundraising challenges, success comes down to basic business fundamentals.
A realistic business plan, strong funder alignment, and a team of experienced operators are key ingredients to ensuring a vertical farm gets off the ground – and stays there.