Fifth Season, a Pittsburgh-based indoor vertical farming startup that used advanced robotics to grow a variety of leafy greens for distribution in salad kits sold at hundreds of grocery stores, has shut down.
According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the revenue-producing startup officially closed its doors on Friday. It employed about 100 workers, most of whom reported to its headquarters in The Highline building on the South Side while others worked out of its 60,000-square-foot indoor farming facility in Braddock.
A representative from the company declined to speak on the record about the startup's closing at this time.
"After three fun-filled and highly educational years at Fifth Season, the company is sadly no more, and I'm on the lookout for my next endeavor," a former employee said in a public LinkedIn post on Tuesday.
On Monday, another former Fifth Season employee shared on LinkedIn: "Working for Fifth Season has been an amazing experience. … Sadly, this journey is ending with Fifth Season closing its doors due to this challenging macroeconomic environment."
And on Saturday when news first broke of the startup's closure, another former Fifth Season employee on LinkedIn posted: "Unfortunately like many startups in this current economy, Fifth Season officially shut its doors yesterday. This has been a highlight of my career thus far, and I'm excited to see where things take me."
Further details on what led to the company's closure remain unknown, though it comes amid a local and national backdrop of difficult times for capital-heavy tech startups seeking additional investments amid tightening economic conditions. The closure of Fifth Season is the latest blow to Pittsburgh's startup community as it comes just days after Strip District-based autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI announced it, too, had closed. Argo's local employment reached about 800 workers across the region and nearly 2,000 people worldwide.
A Carnegie Mellon University spinout founded in 2016 by CEO Austin Webb, Chief Operating Officer Brac Webb and Chief Technology Officer Austin Lawrence, Fifth Season went on to raise more than $75 million in outside investments.
Like Argo, Fifth Season's shuttering follows a period of significant milestones for the company.
Just weeks ago, the company announced a new salad product and a complete redesign of its packaging. In September, it offered a media tour of its Braddock farm to celebrate the full activation of its on-site microgrid that is capable of supplying 1,360 kilowatts of electricity to the site during peak usage. That followed the August announcement that Fifth Season began offering its salad kits at local Whole Foods locations, the latest addition to the more than 750 grocery stores where consumers could find its products.
Fifth Season also had huge ambitions for the future.
It planned to open a new indoor farming facility in Columbus, Ohio, in 2023 that would've spanned 180,000 square feet. When the company established The Highline as its headquarters last January, Austin Webb had said he envisioned the startup producing $500 million in annual revenue over the next five years.
Fifth Season's tech used end-to-end robotics-assisted automation to not only grow, but also harvest its various leafy vegetables, which were then packaged and sold as salads, mixed greens or in variety packs. Its highly automated Braddock farm had about 20 people working during any given shift, a small-scale crew given the size of the facility equaled that of a football field.
