Agricultural workers learn how to use the Ganaz’s software. (Ganaz Photo)

New funding: Seattle-based Ganaz, a startup focused on bringing workforce management and financial tools to the agricultural sector, has raised $7 million in Series A round. The new funding follows a year of growth for the startup that saw its customer base increase nearly 10X during the COVID-19 pandemic. It now serves more than 175,000 food industry workers.

Ganaz CEO and co-founder Hannah Freeman. (Ganaz Photo)

The tech: The company’s software offers employee onboarding, training, communication and analytics tools to farm workers, growers and food processors across North America. Ganaz currently serves 75 employers across the U.S. and Mexico. Employers also use Ganaz to conduct anonymous surveys for their workforce and communication with dispersed employees.

Ganaz CEO Hannah Freeman said Ganaz hopes to expand to eight additional countries, primarily in Latin America, by the end of the year.

New financial tech: Later this year, the company will expand with a Mastercard Payroll Card service to digitize financial paperwork for its customers. It hopes to eliminate paper checks, which Freeman said 90% of the industry still uses. Over time, Freeman said these financial services could grow to be about two-thirds of the company’s business.

Funding source: The new funding is led by Trilogy Equity with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Founders’ Co-op, Taylor Ventures, AgFunder and Techstars.

“We invested in Ganaz because we fundamentally believe that you can do very well by doing good, and we’ve seen that in other mission-driven companies in our portfolio,” Peter van Oppen, a partner at Trilogy Equity and new Ganaz board member, said in a statement. To date, Ganaz has raised $10.4 million in funding.

The team: Ganaz currently employs 11 people. Freeman said her company will soon hire more than 30 new team members across the company, which is a Techstars Seattle graduate. Freeman previously worked at Fair Trade USA before launching Ganaz with Sri Artham, who left the company in 2018 and went on to found plant-based meat startup Hooray Foods in San Francisco.

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