iFarmer raises $2.1 M in Bangladesh’s largest Agritech Funding from IDLC Ventures and Millville Opportunities

iFarmer, a Bangladesh-based full-stack agriculture platform for farmers, announced the completion of a $2.1 million Series Pre-A round of financing led by IDLC Ventures, the VC arm of IDLC Finance. New York-based Millville Opportunities, and Startup Bangladesh Limited, the flagship venture capital fund of the Bangladesh Government’s ICT Ministry, also participated in the round.

Launched in 2019, iFarmer is Bangladesh’s largest AgriTech company, offering comprehensive solutions for farmers, agricultural input sellers, and buyers, including retailers, processing companies, and wholesale markets. iFarmer works closely with farmers to improve production, harvest predictability, and streamlining agricultural supply chains through the elimination of middlemen—thereby improving farmer margins.

As a hands-on partner to farmers, iFarmer facilitates retail and institutional lenders to provide financing for farmers and enables access to high-quality agricultural inputs through partnerships with agricultural companies and retailers. The firm creates better market access for the farmers by aggregating products from farmers and selling them to institutional buyers, retailers, and wholesale markets. The company employs a team of field agents to support farmers with their needs and ensures that produce makes it to market, providing farmers with access to analytics through iFarmer’s app for farmer onboarding and monitoring, enabling farmers to gain access to financing, inputs, and retailers.

Over the past year, iFarmer has posted growth across all fronts, including revenue, which experienced 7.7 times growth in 2021. Revenue growth has been driven by the supply of produce to markets, sales of agricultural inputs to retailers, and commissions from financing. The company is currently operating in 19 districts across Bangladesh, and serving close to 63,000 plus farmers with over 8,000 tons of monthly produce volume delivered to institutional buyers, wholesale markets, and retailers. Farmers are able to procure affordable and quality agricultural supplies, such as fertilizers and seeds, through iFarmer’s partnerships with nearly 2,900 agricultural retailers.

iFarmer is led by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs with experience in global development and technology, including Fahad Ifaz (CEO) and Jamil Akbar (COO). The company has built a team of more than 120 members, with experience in agriculture, data, supply chain, finance, and technology, leveraging global best practices with local Bangladeshi market expertise.

“Agriculture is one of the oldest industries known to man—and the cornerstone of modern civilization—yet remains underdeveloped in many parts of the world. Through our comprehensive agricultural offerings, iFarmer is able to improve harvest output and produce quality, while making a meaningful impact in the lives of farmers in Bangladesh through higher take-home income and productivity,” said Fahad Ifaz, Co-Founder and CEO of iFarmer. “We are grateful for the support of our investors, and are excited to serve even more Bangladeshi farmers to help improve their livelihoods.”

With this round of financing, iFarmer plans to expand to more districts in Bangladesh, expand its supply chain infrastructure to supply more agricultural inputs, and aggregate farm produce. iFarmer has also been conducting pilots on agriculture insurance and developing smart sensor and remote sensing-based advisory services, covering soil analysis, fertilizer recommendation, and weather advisory. The company will also recruit top tech talent and other key functions, having doubled the size of its workforce over the past year.

“The IDLC Venture Capital Fund I aims to finance promising new businesses which are solving fundamental problems for Bangladesh. We are excited that iFarmer is unlocking the true potential of the agriculture sector through technology, at scale. It is using innovation to enable farmers all across Bangladesh and we believe they are solving the most crucial problems in the industry’s supply-chain,” said Mustafizur Khan, Partner at IDLC VC 1.

“iFarmer has proven that it can significantly improve the lives of farmers while bringing efficiency to the agri supply chain. We are excited to back iFarmer as they transform the agriculture sector that is critical to the economy of Bangladesh,” said Alejandro Montealegre, Managing Partner, Millville Opportunities.

The startup was part of Singapore Based accelerator program, Accelerating Asia, and won Seedstars Bangladesh and APAC round in 2019 and also UNCDF`s Fintech Innovation award.