Farm Startups Bent on Shaking Up Cargill, ADM Are Stumbling
- Newcomers with high-tech platforms have seen funding dry up
- Silicon Valley playbook doesn’t easily translate to farm world
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Bold startups that once threatened to shake up the $1.5 trillion agriculture sector and disrupt the likes of crop trading giants such as Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. and Cargill Inc. are stumbling.
Indigo Ag Inc., once a marketplace for trading and shipping grain, has cut jobs and shrunk its business. Farmers Edge Inc. was taken private at a tiny fraction of its initial public offering. Gro Intelligence, named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Companies, is shutting down, according to a person familiar with the matter.