London start-up Wefarm has raised $13m (£10m) in a Series A round led by True Ventures.
The fund, which also had participation from AgFunder, June Fund along and existing investors LocalGlobe, ADV and Norrsken Foundation, will be used to further its social network for farmers.
Founded in 2015, the London firm is targeting the one billion people directly involved in small-scale farming across the globe.
Currently with 1.9 million farmers on its platform, Wefarm recently expanded its platform by introducing a marketplace to its existing peer-to-peer knowledge sharing platform.
Launching eight months ago, the Wefarm Marketplace gives its users access products and services, and had reached $1m in total sales from in just eight months.
The firm is now planning to diversify further, becoming a key part of the global supply chain by supporting farmers with financing, delivery, and the ability to trade the commodities and crops they grow.
Founder Kenny Ewan, the firm’s CEO, said his vision was to completely change the farming ecosystem.
“If we can inspire 100 million farmers to work together on one platform, we can fundamentally shift global agriculture and trade in their favour, and this round of funding will take us even closer to bringing this vision for improved farm yields into fruition,” he said.
“It’s about harnessing AI to champion human intelligence. Our network of trust empowers farmers to find solutions to problems by knowledge sharing. In tandem, the marketplace will give them access to first-rate products that help to deliver better produce.
“The combination of the two has limitless potential to influence and fight the major agricultural crisis we face.”
Jon Callaghan, co-founder of True Ventures, added: “We are enormously inspired by how Kenny and the Wefarm team have empowered the world’s farmers, and we see great potential for their future.”
“The company is not only impact-driven, but the impressive growth of the Wefarm Marketplace demonstrates exciting commercial opportunities that will connect those farmers to more of what they need to the benefit of all, across the food supply chain. This is a big, global business.”
Last year the founders of Skype and WordPress backed the firm with £3.5m funding.
Wefarm was one of our 101 Start-up Disrupters last year and came through the Wayra UK accelerator.