Indigo is a company that helps farmers drive profitability, environmental sustainability, and consumer health through the use of natural microbiology and digital technologies. Indigo also uses machine learning to help farmers receive payments for their harvests. Indigo recently announced it has raised $250 million in Series E, bringing the company’s total funding to $650 million.
The new investors that participated in this round were undisclosed. But existing investors Baillie Gifford, the Alaska Permanent Fund, the Investment Corporation of Dubai, and Flagship Pioneering participated in this round. With this round of funding, Indigo is now valued at $3.5 billion. This is substantially higher than the $1.4 billion valuation that the company received when it raised $156 million in Series D funding in September.
And Indigo offers Certified Crops like rice, soybeans, and corn to enable farmers to produce higher quality and sustainable crops. These microbial products protect the environment, diseases, and pests. Indigo also offers a Marketplace, which has been compared to as an “eBay for farmers.”
Indigo CEO David Perry told TechCrunch that the company is expected to hit $500 million in bookings this year due to the early growth of the new product, which is eight times the growth year-over-year. Perry knows the struggles that farmers go through as he grew up on a farm in Arkansas.
The Marketplace service started rolling out in June and it has seen more than $6 billion worth of grain added for sale by farmers. And buyers placed more than 4,000 bids worth $2 billion so far. With Marketplace, buyers are able to buy grain directly from farmers and filter based on milling quality, protein content, and production practices (organic or not). And growers are paid based on the crop quality, which is determined by samples sent to third-party labs.
“It’s part of a bigger plan,” said Perry via TechCrunch. “We knew microbiology was a cornerstone to changing agriculture but it couldn’t do it by itself.” Perry previously co-founded Better Therapeutics and Anacor Pharmaceuticals. Anacor was acquired by Pfizer for $5.2 billion.
