Agworld secures $6 million Series C funding with plans to expand to North America – StartupSmart
Agriculture startups have been gaining momentum globally, and a new raise by one of Australia’s success stories in the space looks to solidify the impact the local industry can have on bringing technological innovations to farm production.
Agworld, Australia’s leading information management and cloud collaboration software for the agricultural industry, today announced it raised $6 million in a Series C round of funding led by Reed Elsevier Ventures with participation from existing Agworld investor, Yuuwa Capital.
The funding, which brings the company’s total equity raised to $12 million, will be used to support its expansion into the North American agricultural market while continuing to enhance the core Agworld product offering across the value chain for the Australian market.
“Agworld’s tremendous success in Australia reflects the rapidly changing future of farm production,” says Tony Askew, general partner of Reed Elsevier Ventures.
“We are very excited to help Agworld expand into the US market so that farmers and agronomists around the world can harness the value of their farming data with Agworld’s leading mobile and cloud technology.”
Agworld provides a centralised software platform for each participant involved in the crop production process, allowing for real-time collaboration and management of critical information, activities and recommendations throughout the crop production cycle.
Agworld’s extensive features include decision-making tools such as comprehensive crop production plans, geospatial data interrogation, agronomist recommendations, and financial and crop performance reporting.
“It’s all about farmers and their service providers understanding the core risks and opportunities for their business in the context of that specific location and farm entity,” says Doug Fitch, CEO of Agworld.
“As the venture capital arm of one of the largest global data and information solutions companies, Reed Elsevier Ventures is an ideal investment partner for Agworld, bringing with them extensive knowledge of the big data industry and fast moving SaaS business models,” says Fitch.
“This infusion of capital allows us to remain at the forefront of the agricultural information management and big data markets, while we continue to change the way growers, advisors and suppliers capture unique insights to improve farm operations.”
Late last year, Monsato paid almost $1 billion in cash for Climate Corp, which provides production and risk management tools to farmers based on its “hyper-local” weather monitoring, agronomic data modelling, and weather simulations.
Other big players in the space include: Solum, Farmeron , AgSmarts, i-Linc and Weather Trends International.