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A startup called Farmers Business Network has raised $20 million in new venture funding to support the growth of its professional social network and data-sharing platform for agronomists.
FBN co-founder and Vice President of Product Charles Baron said the company’s platform helps farmers do what they’ve always done offline at community meetings, old-fashioned barn raisings or in other peer groups, which is to share information about what’s working, and not, in their business.
Perhaps most importantly, FBN allows farmers to share and review aggregate pricing data on “inputs,” as they’re called in agriculture, meaning the costly seeds, fertilizers and other chemicals added to the soil to generate a healthy crop.
The FBN platform also allows farmers to upload, store and analyze data coming out of the “agtech” systems—including data gathered by drones overhead, or sensors and cameras on the ground– increasingly used to monitor weather, crop health, soil quality and irrigation levels in the field.
Keeping farmers and the independent consultants informed of the real prices being paid for inputs can help them avoid paying too much for what they need, or avoid buying too much of an input when a lower volume of it will do.
Being able to analyze their own quantitative data in one report, and compare their own results with those shared by others, can also help farmers find what’s working in terms of new techniques of products.
The agriculture industry, like the pharmaceuticals industry, is full of high-priced name brand products, and some seed or other inputs made by smaller, “off-brands,” that are equally effective.
But agronomists buying seeds and chemicals haven’t had the equivalent of a neighborhood pharmacist informing them when there’s an effective generic they could try to lower their expenditures.
Acre Venture Partners led the Series B round in FBN, joined by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Kleiner Perkins and DBL Partners. The new round brings the company’s total capital raised to-date to $44 million.
Agriculture tech has become a huge area of interest for venture capitalists in recent years with a number of new food and agriculture-focused funds launching in the past two years, and agtech deals racking up in the portfolios of larger, generalized tech funds, to improve food production.
That’s partly because of the sheer amount of spending and demand there is for food in the world, especially the US. According to
While FBN plans to go international.
For now, investors expect the startup to focus on developing coverage of more types of crops and inputs, and bringing more farmers into the fray who have never used FBN before, Asten said.
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