The world’s largest platform for smallholders will expand its SMS service to an online platform after a Series A Plus round worth 11 million US dollars. As of 2015, Wefarm has provided 2.5 million farmers with a free, AI-driven SMS tool that connects them with each other and with a trusted market. This platform extension marks a new moment of connectivity for hundreds of millions of farmers worldwide.
The round was led by Octopus Ventures with the participation of new and existing investors, including True Ventures, Rabo Frontier Ventures, LocalGlobe, June Fund and AgFunder. This round of investments brings Wefarm’s total funding to $ 32 million.
In recent years the Wefarm model has become more important than ever. The platform enables farmers who are vital to global food production to connect with one another and harness the power of their community. With Wefarm, millions of farmers can combine their knowledge and purchasing power to address global challenges that affect their yields, such as: B. Climate change, limited soil fertility and growing demand for food worldwide.
Wefarm’s platform enables farmers to connect with their community to know more, buy smarter, and sell better. So far, 2.5 million farmers have connected to each other for free and without internet access via the Wefarm SMS platform. The company pioneered this offline technology for the market in 2015. The Wefarm SMS service had over 37 million knowledge sharing calls while the market had sales of $ 29,000,000. The online extension of the SMS service includes a forum-based platform. In this way, farmers can work together to solve problems, support one another, and aggregate their buying and selling power to transform the global supply chain.
This investment enables Wefarm to advance the development of its online platform and marketplace so that farmers can continue to be connected to the knowledge and resources they need to be successful on a large scale.
“Wefarm is building the ultimate platform and network for the world’s largest industry,” said Kenny Ewan, Founder and CEO of Wefarm. “This may be the largest community in the world, and yet it has been severely underserved by technology. Today the community is ready to expand into an online space with us. We have years of insight and millions of data points to strengthen our first mover advantage as we build Wefarm’s online expansion for hundreds of millions of farmers. “
“By building an engaged community of millions of smallholders, Wefarm has created a powerful platform that provides better access to critical knowledge and information and enables farmers to unlock greater economic potential from their land,” said Kamran Adle, early stage investor at Octopus Ventures.
“In practice, this could mean understanding which fertilizers work best, what the market price for certain goods is, or new growing techniques that lead to better yields. All of these can make a significant difference in livelihoods. It’s also a huge market, with more than 400 million smallholders worldwide spending around $ 400 billion on agricultural supplies. Kenny and the team at Wefarm have a great opportunity to grow to an incredible size and we look forward to the launch of the digital platform that will continue to accelerate growth. “
