GrainChain of Texas, which is building a blockchain-based agricultural supply chain for tracking purposes, announced today that it had raised $29 Million in a funding round designed to speed up growth throughout the U.S.
Overstock.com Inc. invested in this round via Medici Ventures. Pelion Venture partners and Brigham Young University, via BYU Cougar Capital. This brings the total funds raised to 39,7 million dollars over the course of the funding rounds.
GrainChain offers solutions using a distributed ledger platform on the blockchain to help farmers, distributors, grocery stores and other agricultural companies receive payments faster. They do this by tracking supply between buyers and farms of commodities that can be traded in order to establish fair markets. The solutions it offers include tracking data from seeds to harvests, inventory management and logistics for transportation.
Luis Macias, co-founder of GrainChain and its Chief Executive Officer said that 2022 marked a breakthrough year in GrainChain’s history. Our transaction platform Trumodity was integrated fully with Latin America’s banking system and our liquidity program with Mexican and Central American coffee producers led to explosive growth.
In January, GrainChain opened a relationship with one of the biggest coffee exporters in Mexico, Exportadora de Café California (a division of coffee importer Neumann Kaffee Gruppe), which supplies a significant number of the coffee roasters worldwide with coffee beans both directly and through its sister importing companies.
GrainChain, so far, has onboarded thousands small-scale coffee producers and others in Central America. MasterBarter, an organization in Brazil that was created to increase the accessibility of bartering for farmers as well as to create financial inclusion among operators and workers without access to central banks, is also supported by GrainChain.
Businesses can gain operational transparency using blockchain technology by recording all transactions in a distributed ledger. This data can then be verified by third parties as to whether the information has been altered. Farmers can use the blockchain to track pallets and crates of food, allowing them to be traced from farm-to-shelf. The commodities on this blockchain can be sold and bought, allowing for faster payment and title transfer.
IBM Food Trust Network was created to track and register a variety of items to help ensure food safety throughout the agricultural supply chain.
GrainChain is currently active in four countries, including Mexico, Central America, the United States and Brazil. It stated that the funding will be used to increase the growth and expansion of the agricultural product solutions.