- Italy’s xFarm Technologies has raised a €36 million ($39 million) Series C round for its farm management platform that promises to digitize a farm “in less than 10 minutes.”
- Investment firm Partech led the round through its Impact Growth Fund that focuses on European impact companies and technologies.
- Mouro Capital also participated along with existing investors Swisscom Ventures, United Ventures, and others.
- New funding will go towards strengthening the company’s presence in the EU, expansion to Turkey, India, and other geographies, and the creation of new fintech divisions and products.
Since raising a €17 million ($18.6 million) Series B in 2022, xFarm has expanded the number of farms on its platform from 110,000 to 450,000, while the number of hectares traced on the platform has grown from 1.5 million to 7 million.
The xFarm platform “enables better farm management” by consolidating all farm data into a single application, says Riccardo De Nadai, communications manager at xFarm.
“It integrates machinery, tools, and IoT devices into a single application, creating a connected ecosystem that simplifies operations,” he tells AgFunderNews, adding that the platform also assists farmers in monitoring and reducing their environmental footprint.
Decision Support Systems (DSS) help optimize the use of agronomic resources, which is important information for farmers in an era where more expect reduced use of inputs, he adds.
The company operates across multiple countries in Europe including Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, France and Portugal, and also has a presence in the UK, Switzerland, and Morocco. In recent months it has also expanded to Latin America.
‘We’ve fully embraced sustainability’
At the time of the Series B fundraise, xFarm said it would increase work on platform features that enabled more climate-friendly farming. The last couple of years have seen the company make good on this promise, with a focus shift on helping farmers monitor on-farm practices in order to transition towards those with lower environmental impact.
“Since 2022 we’ve fully embraced sustainability, from impact calculations to regenerative agriculture,” says De Nadai.
Speaking onstage at last week’s World Agri-Tech show in the UK, xFarm CEO Matteo Vanotti reminded the audience that “If you want to change something, you need the data first to measure the starting point.”
“Regenerative agriculture is complex,” he added. “You need to measure . . . in order to show not only the environmental sustainability, but also to measure the economic [benefits to] the farmers.”
To better enable farmers to do this, xFarm has made two acquisitions in the recent past and integrated the technologies into its own platform: Spain-based Greenfield Technologies, which specializes in soil characterization as a pathway to regenerative agriculture, and France’s SpaceSense, a climate intelligence service using satellite data and artificial intelligence for on-farm sustainability assessments.
xFarm also has a partnership with Bunge in Brazil to support farmers transitioning to low carbon agriculture.
On top of these deals, xFarm says it has also upped its number of integrations, which is now close to 100, increased the number of languages available for the platform, and developed a new “insurtech [aka finance] module” to the platform.
‘An attractive candidate’ for climate funds
Investment to farmtech has been abysmally low so far in 2024; funding to remote sensing and software startups in agriculture reached just $536 million in H1 2024, according to preliminary data from AgFunder. [Disclosure: AgFunder is AgFunderNews‘ parent company.]
De Nadai acknowledges these are especially challenging times in which to be a startup — especially an agtech startup.
“It’s true that interest in agtech has waned significantly over the past two years, which is a challenge, especially for early-stage startups where market vision is critical,” he says. “However, as a scale-up, we have seen significant interest from growth equity and later stage VC investors. Our previous efforts to expand internationally, improve metrics, and position ourselves as a leader in European markets have paid off.”
He adds that the xFarm technology’s ability to reduce on-farm emissions has made the company “an attractive candidate for funds focused on cleantech and impact.”
Series C funding will go towards further strengthening the company’s position in the EU and further expansion into Latin America, Turkey and India.
De Nadai says xFarm is also developing new divisions, Insurtech and Fintech, to “help farmers manage risk and credit.” Fintech investment firm Mouro Capital’s participation in the Series C round is especially strategic here.
Funding will also support product improvement and recruiting additional talent.
