Laramie-Based Bright Agrotech Acquired By San Francisco Company

Laramie-based Bright Agrotech, whose flagship product is its ZipGrow vertical farming towers, was recently acquired by San Francisco based Plenty, a vertical farming company.

Plenty announced the acquisition earlier this week. Chris Michael, CEO and Co-Founder of Bright Agrotech, said the acquisition will help Bright pursue its mission of helping local farmers gain a competitive edge.

“At Bright Agrotech, we’ve always wanted to provide better food everywhere through technology and techniques that help people realize the benefits of local food,” Michael said. “By joining forces with Plenty, this helps us really accelerate towards that goal of making fresh, local food more ubiquitous by doing that at scale and much bigger facilities.”

Bright got its start in 2010 after co-founder Nate Storey graduated from the University of Wyoming with his Ph.D. in Agronomy. Storey developed the hydroponic vertical growing towers that allowed farmers to grow produce without soil and in very small spaces. Since then, bright has partnered with small farmers to start and grow indoor farms and providing high-tech growing systems, education and software.

Michael says that since its founding in Laramie, Bright has outgrown the city limits.

“We’ve been selling around the country for five years and around the world for about four years,” Michael said. “We’re all over the map, we have distribution in Australia, Europe, Canada and of course the U.S.”

Despite having expanded across the globe, Michael said the acquisition will have many benefits for the Laramie community.

“We fully anticipate that we are going to continue growing our capabilities here in Laramie as well as our employees,” Michael said.  “I think we will see a lot more growth here in town as well and hopefully be able to turn Laramie into a real hub for environment-controlled agriculture.”

Michael said the Bright team in Laramie will remain in town and the Plenty team will coordinate in San Fransisco.