News » 08.06.2026 - Start-ups in agriculture and food are finding it harder to secure investment capital

Start-ups in agriculture and food are encountering a more cautious investment climate. Following a number of high-profile failures, investors have become more selective, an observation shared by several companies exhibiting at an international trade fair held on the campus of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands, which was visited by Dutch publication Financieele Dagblad (link in Dutch).

One segment feeling the effects of this shift is vertical farming. Jort Maarseveen, representing start-up Hippotainer, notes the change directly. The company develops small-scale vertical farms housed in shipping containers. Raising investment capital has become considerably harder than it was five years ago, he says. "Investors have become a lot more cautious, and for good reason. Earlier companies made mistakes that we would not repeat."

Not everyone sees the situation in stark terms. "Start-ups will always say it is difficult to raise money," says Michiel Scheffer, president of the European Innovation Council, which supports high-risk technologies across the European Union. What observers do agree on is that the sector needs visible successes, because those are what restart the investment cycle.

On 20 and 21 May, the 11th F&A NEXT Summit took place in Wageningen.
 

Source: www.floraldaily.com

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