Smartwyre, a secure digital platform that connects agricultural input manufacturers, distributors, and retailers with the commercial insights they need to price with confidence, announced today it has secured $10.5M in Series A funding. Led by High Alpha Capital, the funding was supported with participation from existing investors Anterra Capital, Fall Line Capital, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest fund and Cavallo Ventures.
For the agricultural inputs industry, which accounts for nearly $400 billion in annual purchases by the world’s farmers, Smartwyre is the first platform to provide end-to-end insights from cost management to commercial pricing, improving industry profitability and preventing mismatches between production levels and the actual farmer demand.
“At Smartwyre, our mission is deeply connected to the agricultural inputs industry and the people in it that we serve. We aim to improve our clients’ corporate profitability but also the quality of life for their commercial staff,” said Smartwyre Founder and CEO John Brubaker. “We’re doing this by offering modern cloud software, built on a digital network that securely connects established trading partners with the commercial information they need to succeed.”
In 2021, companies delivering more than 35% of the agricultural inputs supplied to US farmers use Smartwyre’s platform to manage their product information, pricing or rebate operations.
A strategic Smartwyre client, TENKoZ, one of the US market’s largest distributors of crop protection products, is digitizing its pricing and rebate management operations using Smartwyre’s platform.
“Our distributor and retail members drive their commercial operations using some extremely complex business and financial incentives,” said TENKoZ Vice President Jon Doran, “We’re working with Smartwyre and our manufacturer partners to help our members track and manage their business performance throughout the crop cycle. This gives us expanded capability to rapidly shape product offerings for our ultimate customer – the American farmer.”
Smartwyre’s new funding will allow the company to further support agricultural industry commercial leaders in digitizing their pricing and connecting to their customers. Plans for the funding also include expanding Smartwyre’s commercial, product development and engineering teams while adding additional capability to its digital platform and investing in existing customer relationships.
“High Alpha Capital is grateful for the opportunity to support Smartwyre’s next phase of growth,” said High Alpha Partner Kristian Andersen. “We believe that John and the Smartwyre team are uniquely positioned to transform the agricultural inputs industry by bringing more efficiency, transparency and value to the marketplace.”
“Our information-age world depends on the world’s 600 million farms, and those farmers rely on the efforts of the agricultural supply industry,” added Adam Anders, managing partner at Anterra Capital and an early Smartwyre investor. “We’re pleased to continue to support Smartwyre’s investment in new digital tools for this critical industry to our global food supply.”
Smartwyre is headquartered in Denver, with additional commercial and engineering teams in North Carolina and London, UK. The company has mid-term plans to launch commercial operations in Europe and Latin America.
About Smartwyre
Smartwyre, headquartered in Denver, connects the agricultural inputs industry with accurate and up-to-date product, price and rebate program data. By connecting the cost management and commercial pricing activities within an agricultural input retailer, Smartwyre prevents mismatches between production levels and actual farmer demand, shrinking excess inventory and administrative headaches for business leaders. To learn more, visit smartwyre.com.
About High Alpha
High Alpha, based in Indianapolis, invests in both High Alpha Studio companies and outside entrepreneurs building the next generation of B2B SaaS companies. The High Alpha portfolio includes leading cloud companies Attentive, SalesLoft, Zylo, Terminus, The Mom Project, Rheaply, LogicGate, MetaCX, Mandolin, project44 and more. For more information, visit highalpha.com or follow on Twitter @highalpha.
For further information or press inquiries, please contact press@smartwyre.com
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