Member Article

Online marketplace Farmdrop secures £3m investment

Fresh food marketplace Farmdrop has secured £3m investment in its latest funding round led by an investment company founded by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström.

The online marketplace, which helps consumers buy fresh produce direct from local farms, worked with London-headquartered investment firm Atomico to secure its latest round of investment.

Farmdrop has experienced rapid growth in the past two years with its customer base growing by 230% year on year following a successful crowdfunding effort which saw it raise a record £750,000 on CrowdCube.

The company, which was founded by ex-Morgan Stanley stockbroker Ben Pugh, uses a closed-loop ‘click-to-harvest’ technology which puts consumers in direct contact with local farms, whilst also enabling producers to manage supply better and reduce food wastage.

Ben Pugh, founder of Farmdrop, commented: “The food industry in this country is completely broken with too much power belonging to a selected few who treat farmers and producers badly, whilst offering consumers chemically-preserved, tasteless food.

“Farmdrop is on mission to fix the food chain by making it easy to buy the best food from the best local producers.

“We believe everyone deserves a more delicious world and this investment will help us continue to improve the product and spread the word about the Farmdrop revolution.”

Niklas Zennström, Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Atomico, added: “Farmdrop is demonstrating huge ambition by disrupting the established food chain and addressing the growing concerns many of us have about the quality and provenance of our food.”

“We’ve been extremely impressed with the team and their growth so far so we’re proud to become an investor.

“We’re especially pleased to be joining their existing bench of founder-funders, and look forward to providing our own unique value to Ben and his team as they begin to scale the business.”