Indigo Ag, the Cambridge-based agtech startup that uses microbiology research to help farmers replace chemicals and fertilizers and increase crop yield, closed a $200 million funding round on Monday.
The round consists of $175 million in convertible equity and $25 million in debt and brings the startup's total capital raised to about $850 million. FedEx and Pacific Western Bank joined existing investors in the round.
In a press release, Indigo Ag said the funding would go toward the global growth of Indigo Grain Marketplace, an e-commerce platform that connects farmers directly with buyers of their crops, which launched publicly in September 2018.
The financing will also be used to support the growth of Indigo Carbon, part of the Terraton Initiative, a project that seeks to remove 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by incentivizing farmers to implement regenerative practices that uptake carbon. That initiative earned the company a spot on our list of "moonshot" companies in Greater Boston last year, as well as on our 50 on Fire alumni.
"Indigo and The Terraton Initiative offer promising solutions to address climate change," Frederick W. Smith, chairman of FedEx, said in the release. "The sustainability of our environment is a strategic focus area for FedEx, and we look forward to supporting Indigo’s efforts to transform agriculture into a scalable, affordable, and immediate approach to reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide."
Indigo Ag CEO David Perry said the company also plans to generate positive operating cash flow near the end of the year and for the full year 2021.
"In the past year, Indigo has seen continued growth across all of its business lines, from Grain Marketplace to Carbon to Transport," Perry said in the release.
Transport is an initiative the company launched nearly a year ago to bring more underutilized trucks to the agricultural transportation market and avoid backhauls.
