Why We Invested: Harvesting

▤ Summary

In doing so, it hopes to unlock more appropriate financial products and other services for hundreds of millions of smallholders.The worlds 500 million smallholder farmers grow 70% of our food, yet most live on less than $2 a day without access to the knowledge, services and tools they need to increase their incomes.At Mercy Corps Social Ventures, we envision a future where smallholder farmers, including women and youth, have agency over their livelihoods and are fully integrated into food systems with access to the myriad of tools they need feed their families and generate profit for them to thrive. They are resilient in the face of inevitable shocks and empowered to take control over their livelihoods and break the cycle of poverty.Our food systems are ripe for (positive) disruption, but we approach agriculture humbly. As with all innovations, we are still probably overestimating the impact in the short-run, while simultaneously underestimating the long-run applications and potential.There is an estimated $450 billion capital demand in financial services to smallholder farmers, but current models only reach only about 710% of this figure. The market opportunity is massive, and our fund is excited to invest across a spectrum of models to maximize learning and success.Though early in its journey, Harvesting has forged major partnerships and contracts, including FMO Dutch Development Bank and Maha Agriculture Finance to rollout their agri-lending suite in Myanmar and a CGAP partnership to support Pride MicroFinance in Uganda to build a credit risk scoring system for farmers. As an investor, we aim to help Harvesting leverage our extensive network of microfinance institution partners, agricultural programming, and general ag finance expertise.

$ Funding

▦ Linked Companies

Harvesting Inc

$5M to $10M