Farmers Edge recently received funds
Farmers Edge has cut its per-acre pricing by more than 50 per cent for the 2015 growing season. Last year, farmers paid $8.95 per acre for a full-service package. This year, the price has fallen to $3.95 per acre, and that was lowered by a further 12 per cent for farmers who signed up before the end of September.
“We wanted to do something disruptive in the marketplace,” says Farmers Edge CEO Wade Barnes. “I thought that the market needed to be shaken up.”
Farmers Edge recently received funds from Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “They did our market research for us,” Barnes says. Kleiner Perkins interviewed 20 Farmers Edge customers during their pre-investment investigation of the company and the industry. They found that, while current Farmers Edge customers were satisfied, they hadn’t signed up their entire farm. Kleiner Perkins pointed out that by lowering prices, Farmers Edge could entice current customers to sign up all of their acres, as well as attracting new clients. “In order to get mass adoption, the price point has to be where it becomes a no-brainer,” says Barnes.
For $3.95 an acre, Canadian Prairie farmers will have access to the full suite of Farmers Edge products: variable rate fertilizer programs, telematics packages to manage fleets of machinery, updated satellite images every seven to 10 days during the growing season and localized weather information. “We’re combining everything to give farmers a total solution,” says Barnes.