(Reuters) – U.S. grain merchant Archer-Daniels-Midland Co has taken a minority stake in Farmers Business Network in a deal that values the agriculture technology platform at $3.9 billion, the companies said on Thursday.
FBN’s data-driven platform allows farmers to make decisions on seeds and agronomics.
The startup, founded in 2014, said it would use the capital to fuel the growth of its different platforms, FBN Direct, FBN Financial platforms and Gradable, among other things.
FBN intends to hire more than 350 new team members in the next year, and invest in technology and data science.
ADM’s investment is being made through ADM Ventures, the company’s corporate venture capital arm, according to the joint statement.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)
