Barn2Door Lands $3.4M To Help Farmers Sell Online

Barn2Door has revealed that it raised a $3.4 million investment round led by Lead Edge Capital, with participation from Global Founders Capital and other investors.

The startup, which creates eCommerce software for farmers, has now raised more than $4.5 million, with investors also including Sugar Mountain Capital, Fire & Vine Hospitality and Canlis Restaurant. This latest round will be used to continue building technology that connects farms with customers.

Founded in 2015, the company has farm clients across 40 states, with its most of its customers located in the Midwest.

“I feel a deep conviction about helping to improve access to clean, sustainable foods that are locally produced,” CEO Janelle Maiocco said, according to GeekWire. “At Barn2Door, we aim to make it easy for farmers to sell their food online, improving the convenience for their customers. By doing so, we can promote better stewardship of our planet, and improve the margins and viability of family-owned farms.”

Maiocco founded Barn2Door after shutting down Farmstr, an organic food marketplace that helped farmers aggregate products, acquire and market to customers, and manage and fulfill food orders. The complex model turned out to be too expensive to be profitable, so Maiocco decided to go with a simpler concept. While Barn2Door develops the eCommerce software, farmers need to do everything else to make their business a success.

Maiocco compared her company to Mindbody, a software provider for salons and spas, and restaurant software maker ChowNow, which also develop products to help clients “streamline operations, enable payments, and manage customers,” she said. It is a concept Maiocco doesn’t plan on straying from.

“There is a lot of innovation in food right now, capturing a lot of publicity,” she said. “We steer clear of the trends, and remain purely focused on enabling farmers, with clean and sustainable practices, to better serve their customers directly — their success is our success.”