WeFarm, a peer-to-peer agriculture tech startup, has secured £1.3m in Seed funding in a round led by Robin and Saul Klein’s VC firm LocalGlobe.
The money will be used to expand WeFarm’s user base, giving more small-scale farmers access to vital agricultural information which can be reached offline.
Kenny Ewan, WeFarm founder and CEO, said, “Connecting farmers to relevant advice from other farmers is a completely new approach. The majority of information delivered to people living in poverty is top-down, whereas we are using a crowdsourcing model to unlock generations worth of grassroots knowledge, ideas, and experience among farmers.
“This is why WeFarm has already secured more than 100,000 registered members in an industry where less than 0.1 % of mobile apps ever reach even half that number,” he added.
WeFarm enables users to send a free SMS in order to receive answers to any agricultural queries. The service uses machine learning to connect incoming questions to those users already on the system who have the most relevant knowledge.
Born out of Wayra UK’s accelerator in London, WeFarm claims to have more than 100,000 farmers across Kenya, Uganda and Peru registered on its platform.
LocalGlobe partner Saul Klein spoke about the fund raise: “WeFarm is building and empowering a community of farmers, dramatically improving their experience of obtaining advice.
“In doing so, WeFarm has created an SMS and web-based network that’s enjoying real user growth and engagement. We believe that this network, whether delivered on feature or smart phones, will, over time, become an important channel for farmers into the wider food supply chain,’ concluded Klein.