Farmshare 🧑‍🌾

Setting the Scene

• For every dollar you spend at the grocery store, only 14 cents reach the farmer who supplied the product. 😱

  • The rest of the profit lands in the hands of sellers and distributors in the overcrowded supply chain.

• Why does this happen?

  • Producers, usually based in rural areas, struggle to find cost-effective ways to sell directly to consumers.

  • Shoppers lack a simple way to buy directly from independent farmers beyond the farmer’s market.

• This week’s company takes the local farm global through a marketplace that supports farmers’ operations and allows consumers to buy directly from farms.

In a Sentence

Farmshare is a digital marketplace that provides farms with tools to sell directly to consumers and grow their businesses.

• Marketplace: Farmers list products on the platform, and Farmshare ships food to consumers.

• Tools: In addition to a sales channel, the company offers inventory management software, CRM, and marketing support.

The Basics

• Industry: Agtech, Marketplace, E-Commerce

• Headquarters: Denver, CO

• Year founded: 2022

• Employee count: 4

• Investors: Techstars Farm to Fork, Jude Gomila

• Currently raising: $500k pre-seed, 50% committed

• Business model: SaaS, D2C

• Early traction: 86 farms with 18% MoM growth, 22% MoM platform usage growth

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Due Diligence

WHAT WE LIKE

• 👨‍🌾 Digitizing farms: Farmshare unlocks an additional revenue stream for the 90% of farms that face limited sales channels, pricing control from large-scale factory farms, and a low profit margin.

• 🛒 An evolving shopping cart: The company is well-positioned to meet consumers’ food demands as online grocery sales are growing 12 percent each year, direct farm sales have reached $10 billion, and natural food purchases are outpacing overall grocery sales.

• 🔁 Retaining users: By providing farms with a reliable sales channel and an expanding line of management tools, Farmshare will keep farmers engaged on the platform.

  • Plus, the company will build a high customer lifetime value through repeat purchases.

POTENTIAL RISKS

• 🏪 In-store shopping: Farmshare relies on the mass adoption of online grocery shopping as most people buy their groceries in-store.

• 🔀 Supply and demand: The company must ensure enough farmers consistently sell products to match consumer demand and shoppers regularly purchase food to retain farmers.

• 🌾 Farm challenges: Farmers may be hesitant to transform their practices and adopt new technology.

  • Plus, closing and retaining low-margin customers may be difficult.

Founder Profile

• Henry Arrowood, CEO: Previously worked in business development at Afterpay and Visa.

Comps

• Market Wagon: Backed by gBETA, Hyde Park Venture Partners, New Stack Ventures, and others.

• Crowd Cow: Backed by Ascend, Madrona, Unlock Venture Partners, and others.

• Barn2Door: Backed by Lead Edge Capital, Bullpen Capital, ffVC, and others.

• Harvie: Raised through equity crowdfunding.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

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Last Week Today

• The results are in: Keye, a platform that offers bite-sized access to premium tools and content, was favored by subscribers.

• Subscriber feedback: “The rapid increase of options across many markets will require aggregating these kinds of services.”

✍️ Written by Brett and Sam

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