GV and DBL Partners leads Series C round for FBN

Farmer’s Busi­ness Net­work, a farmer-to-farmer net­work, has secured $40 mil­lion in Series C fund­ing. GV and DBL Part­ners led the round with par­tic­i­pa­tion from Bow Cap­i­tal, Acre Ven­ture Part­ners and Klein­er Perkins Cau­field & Byers.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN CARLOS, Calif. March 7, 2017 – Farmer’s Busi­ness Net­work, Inc., the farmer-to-farmer net­work and a mis­sion-dri­ven busi­ness, today announced a $40 mil­lion Series C round, led by GV (for­mer­ly Google Ven­tures) and DBL Part­ners, with addi­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion from new investor Bow Cap­i­tal and return­ing investors Acre Ven­ture Part­ners and Klein­er Perkins Cau­field & Byers (KPCB). The invest­ment will be used to fur­ther expand the FBNSM net­work, ana­lyt­ics offer­ings, and the FBN Direct farm-com­merce plat­form. The Series C brings the company’s total fund­ing to near­ly $88 million.

The FBN network’s mis­sion is to make a pos­i­tive social impact in rur­al Amer­i­ca as an inde­pen­dent and unbi­ased plat­form that uses cut­ting edge tech­nol­o­gy to make a bet­ter farm econ­o­my for farm­ers and con­sumers alike. The FBN net­work allows farm­ers to anony­mous­ly share data about every­thing from seed per­for­mance to chem­i­cal pric­ing, har­ness­ing the pow­er of data sci­ence to help farm­ers make more informed deci­sions. The FBN Direct farm-com­merce plat­form works with man­u­fac­tur­ers to deliv­er sub­stan­tial­ly reduced input prices to mem­bers. Inspired by research that found dif­fer­ent farm­ers were pay­ing up to 300 per­cent more for the same input prod­ucts, FBN Direct’s trans­par­ent pric­ing sys­tem has helped farm­ers real­ize sav­ings of up to 50 per­cent on crit­i­cal inputs.

“Today, we’re dou­bling down on our mis­sion to empow­er farm­ers to increase prof­its through data-dri­ven deci­sions and rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent busi­ness mod­els,” said Farmer’s Busi­ness Net­work, Inc. CEO and co-founder Amol Desh­pande. “Farm­ers of the future will use tech­nol­o­gy to lev­el the play­ing field with their trad­ing part­ners in big ag.”

“The ris­ing input costs and dips in com­mod­i­ty prices are mak­ing it hard­er than ever to start and main­tain a farm,” said Andy Wheel­er, gen­er­al part­ner at GV. “By pro­vid­ing access to crit­i­cal data about what’s work­ing for oth­er farm­ers and how much they’re pay­ing for dif­fer­ent inputs, the FBN net­work is dri­ving the next wave of yield increas­es in agri­cul­ture for farmers.”

To read the full press release, vis­it The PE HUB Net­work.