Fundings-in-Brief: Online Payment Platform for Growers and Satellite Data Company Raise Funding, more

ProducePay Raises $2.51m Seed Round

ProducePay, an online platform helping farmers to sell their produce and receive payment in a timely manner, has raised $2.51 million in seed funding. Investors in the round include Californian venture capital firms Menlo Ventures, Arena Ventures, New York firm CoVenture, Cornell alumni-focused angel network Red Bear Angels, and early stage seed fund Social Leverage. With the funding the company will launch ProducePay Marketplace, enabling farmers to connect directly with distributors and suppliers. It complements the company’s lending platform, which pays farmers for their produce the day after it’s shipped. Farmers are often left waiting for produce to sell before they’re paid, leaving them in a risky financial position post-harvest. The platform also provides growers with analytics on the performance of their produce.

Italian Satellite Data Company Leaf Space Raises €1m

Leaf Space, an Italian ground station network providing satellite operators with an easy way to exchange data with their space-bound  microsatellites, has raised €1 million in seed funding. Satellite companies only pay for what they download. The round was led by Italian venture firm RedSeed Ventures with participation from Italian VC Como Venture, Irish investment firm Key Capital, Italian incubator PoliHub, among others. It has highlighted agriculture as an industry being served by its clients.

Russian Food E-commerce Startup Raises $1.3m Seed Round

Russian food e-commerce startup Chefmarket has raised $1.3 million in seed funding in a round led by Japanese bank Mitsui with participation from Andrey Romanenko, the co-founder of QIWI and Russian venture fund AddVenture. The startup delivers meals based on the recipes of renowned Russia and West-European chefs. It delivers over 60,000 meals per month, covers three of Russia’s largest cities — Moscow, St Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod — and is Russia’s most dominant player with over 50% market share, according to local reports.

Indian Home-Cooked Meal Delivery Service Closes $1.95m

Holachef has raised $1.95 million in venture funding from local investment firms Kalaari Capital and India Quotient. The round follows a $3.1 million Series A last year. It delivers home-cooked food to consumers in Pune and Mumbai offering about 50 choices everyday.

Agrivi Raises $1m Series A for Farm Management Software

Agrivi, one of Europe’s most successful agtech startups, has raised €1 million ($1.1 million) in Series A funding for its farm management, and vertically-integrated traceability software platform. The Series A was led by South Central Ventures — also known as the Enterprise Innovation Fund — a €40 million vehicle, which counts German development bank KfW and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as investors. Find out more on AgFunderNews.com.

UK’s KisanHub Raises $1m Seed Round for Ag Big Data Service

KisanHub, a UK-based agriculture big data hub, has raised $1 million in seed funding from Notion Capital, a venture firm focused on B2B Software-as-a-Service and cloud companies, and NIAB, a major international plant science research center based in Cambridge, UK. KisanHub is one of very few UK software startups focused on farm data collection, analytics, and decision support. According to its website it offers data capturing and recording, data storage and management, data analytics and visualization, and data-driven decisions and recommendations around irrigation, pest management, and inputs. Find out more about how the company differentiates itself from others in the ag big data space.

Have news or tips? Email [email protected]