Farmers Business Network, a farmer-to-farmer information network, financing and e-commerce platform, raised $250 million in Series F funding led by BlackRock at a reported $1.75 billion valuation.
Why it matters: The pandemic has caused great hardship for many independent farmers, particularly those who sell into food-service segments or who grow commodity crops, so even marginal savings on things like seed can go a long way.
- Other investors included Baron Capital Group, Balyasny Asset Management, Mandi Ventures, Lupa Systems, Ron Shaich, Fidelity Investments Canada, and return backers DBL Partners, Temasek, GV, Expanding Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and T. Rowe Price.
The bottom line: "Farmers Business Network has built a group of 12,000 members, covering 40 million acres of farmland across the U.S., Canada and Australia," Bloomberg's Katie Roof reports.
