TechCrunch+ TC-1

The Bowery Farming TC-1

While dozens of vertical farms have sprouted in the past decade, few have attracted the amount of attention that New Jersey-based Bowery Farming enjoys.

Bowery Farming is forcing us all to look up at the future of vertical agriculture

Food is the very nourishment of life, but it’s becoming increasingly challenging to grow at scale. A combination of explosive population growth, climate change and depleting sources of water is…

Hacking lettuce for taste and profit

"The first thing you notice is just the smell," chief science officer of Bowery Farming Henry Sztul says excitedly. "It's got that smell, right?"

Can LEDs ultimately replace the sun?

For Bowery Farming, no technology is too small to optimize, and no data is too insignificant to track. Combined together, the startup hopes to orchestrate the future of farming and build a moat.

The voracious fight for your salad bowl

The size, the scope, the potential impact — the mind reels. Vertical farming may be a nascent space, but it is growing rapidly, and the greenfield is being taken quickly.

The Automattic TC-1

Sixteen years in and now valued at $7.5 billion, Automattic has found a multitude of strides, even as it strives to own ever more of the media market.

How doing everything wrong turned Automattic into a multibillion dollar media powerhouse

Nothing has been automatic about the success of Automattic. Today, for those who haven’t been paying attention, the company looks a bit like an overnight success story.

There’s nothing Automattic about balancing commercial growth with an open source developer community

The tech industry has made a full 180-degree turn with regard to open source in the 16 years since Matt Mullenweg founded Automattic, the commercial backer of open source CMS, WordPress.

Can social and e-commerce transform the future of the open web?

WooCommerce began life as WooThemes, a small design firm that didn’t look very different from the many others that created WordPress themes.

The future of remote work is text

It’s impossible to talk about Automattic without talking about remote work. The company is a role model and innovator in this area: It has been entirely remote since 2005, and at 1,700 employees, it