Today xFarm, the agtech app, announces raising a Series A investment of €3 million, led by United Ventures SGR SpA, an independent venture capital firm specialising in the software and digital technology sectors, as well as Swiss fund TiVenture SA.
xFarm, founded in 2017 in Italy, is a SaaS platform that aims to facilitate the digitalisation of farms. Their innovative platform just this by simplifying data collection and analysis, reducing bureaucracy, improving the efficiency and sustainability of agricultural fields, and allowing the traceability of agricultural products. Their open platform is based on a freemium business model and integrates a number of functionalities in one place, including: a cloud-based management software, field IoT sensors and marketplace with high value-added services (such as irrigation optimization solutions, agro-meteorological forecasts, disease alerts and precision farming services).
xFarm will use this funding to consolidate its presence on the Italian market and expand into Europe, South America and Africa. In addition, they aim to strengthen the technology platform (especially in the area of AI and blockchain technology) and release new modules to customers.
Due to the increase in world population, which is predicted to rise sharply from from 7 billion people (2017) to 9.7 billion (2050), the agri-food industry is under pressure to innovate – fast. According to FAO-OECD analysis, to meet the subsequent increase in food demand, world agricultural production should increase by at least 70%. Climate change also plays a part, with temperature and rainfall affecting agricultural production. In this challenging scenario, the effort to make agriculture sustainable meets innovation, in a bid to substantially reduce consumption and waste of natural resources.
Massimiliano Magrini, co-founder and managing partner of United Ventures, said: “The decision to invest in xFarm is in line with our strategy of investing in the digital transformation of traditionally analogue sectors and, according to the McKinsey Global Institute’s Industry Digitization Index, agriculture remains the least digitized of all major industrial sectors to date. xFarm’s founder, Matteo Vanotti, came to us with this vision: to create an application that can help and simplify the work of farmers. A world he knows well, because before being an engineer and an entrepreneur he is a farmer himself, as he has always been involved in the family farm. We believe that Matteo and his team are real game changers, and that they have the right skills and ambition to scale the business internationally and become the reference platform for farmers who want to manage their companies digitally”.
Paolo Orsatti, managing partner of TiVenture, emphasizes: “TiVenture is proud to participate in the investment in xFarm, an opportunity that presents all the prerequisites for creating a successful digital company: a market with enormous potential for development, a team of young entrepreneurs focused on achieving corporate goals and a financial partner of the caliber of United Ventures, able to follow the company in all its growth phases”.
