In 2018, the company announced what would become one of its main ventures: an online grain marketplace that would connect farmers with crop buyers, such as agricultural exporters, livestock operations and biofuel makers. It was a way for Indigo to enter a U.S. grain market worth around $100 billion annually.
Typically, farmers raising corn, soybeans, wheat or other major crops sell to nearby grain elevators owned by farm cooperatives or to big agricultural companies such as Cargill, ADM and Gavilon, along with ethanol plants or animal-feed processors.
Indigo’s system aimed to expand the network of buyers for farmers by opening up the market geographically. It also added food processors and ingredient makers looking to buy specific varieties of crops, who typically buy farther down the chain, from large grain companies. Indigo said that connecting farmers to those end buyers could secure higher prices for farmers and lower prices for buyers.
A few months later, it added another platform, this one focused on transport logistics, linking farmers with trucking companies or other farmers with spare trucks.
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