China agricultural services platform secures $29m round

Dafengshou started as an agricultural e-commerce platform in 2014 under DFS168.com, enabling suppliers to sell pesticides, fertilizers and agricultural tools to farmers. The company has since grown to encompass a wider range of services. It runs an online information portal for farmers, offers financial support for farm expansion, and provides drone-delivered pest damage prevention services.

Dafengshou has worked with over 40,000 farmers who are responsible for more than 100 million acres of land. As of January 2016, its rural e-commerce platform had facilitated RMB400 million worth of transactions.

Matrix provided a Series A round of funding for Dafengshou last year. The net proceeds from the latest round will be used to expand offline operations, scale up product offerings, and integrate upstream and downstream industry functions.

“The agricultural materials industry is worth trillions of renminbi in China. It’s a traditional industry with little disruption in terms of its business models and technologies,” Min Xiao, a partner at Matrix, said in a statement. He added that Dafengshou has developed a unique business model to integrate the supply chain, improving efficiency and delivering better products and services to farmers.”

Other recent agricultural sector investments by VC firms include a Series A round for agricultural drone services platform Farm Friend, led by Gobi Partners. Several agricultural product retailers, including Maihuolang Information Technology, Taoshihui, and Cloud Farm, have also received funding from VC and PE players.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Consumer
• China
• TMT
• Venture
• Orchid Asia Group Management
• Matrix Partners