iFarmer, a Dhaka, Bangladesh-based agritech startup, raised US$2.1 million in Pre-A funding.
The round was led by IDLC Ventures, the VC arm of IDLC Finance with participation from Millville Opportunities, and Startup Bangladesh Limited, the flagship venture capital fund of the Bangladesh Government’s ICT Ministry.
With this round of financing, the company plans to expand to more districts in Bangladesh, extend its supply chain infrastructure to supply more agricultural inputs, and aggregate farm produce, and recruit tech talent and other key functions.
Launched in 2019 and led by Fahad Ifaz (CEO); and Jamil Akbar (COO), iFarmer is an agritech company, offering comprehensive solutions for farmers, agricultural input sellers, and buyers, including retailers, processing companies, and wholesale markets. The company works closely with farmers to improve production, harvest predictability, and streamlining agricultural supply chains through the elimination of middlemen—thereby improving farmer margins. The company facilitates retail and institutional lenders to provide financing for farmers, enables access to high quality agricultural inputs through partnership with agricultural companies and retailers, and creates market access for the farmers by aggregating products from farmers and sell to institutional buyers, retailers, and wholesale markets. The company employs a team of field agents to support farmers with their needs and ensure that produce makes it to market, providing access to analytics through an app for onboarding and monitoring, enabling them to gain access to financing, inputs, and retailers. iFarmer has also been conducting pilots on agriculture insurance and developing a smart sensor and remote sensing-based advisory services, covering soil analysis, fertilizer recommendation, and weather advisory.
The company is currently operating in 19 districts across Bangladesh, and serving close to 63,000+ farmers with over 8,000 tons of monthly produce volume delivered to institutional buyers, wholesale markets and retailers. iFarmer has a team of more than 120 members.
The startup was part of Singapore Based accelerator program, Accelerating Asia and won Seedstars Bangladesh and APAC round in 2019 and also UNCDF`s Fintech Innovation award.
FinSMEs
30/05/2022