Months after the board of the agricultural data platform Gro Intelligence replaced its CEO and founder Sara Menker, the New York and Nairobi-based company is set to shut down. This decision comes despite securing emergency funding in March 2024. According to AgFunderNews, the business was unable to secure further capital from both existing and new investors.
The company’s financial difficulties came to light in February 2024, with reports indicating struggles to meet payroll and pension obligations, even after raising a total of $117 million, including an $85 million Series B round backed by Intel Capital and Africa Internet Ventures.
In March 2024, Gro Intelligence laid off 60% of its workforce and will now lay off the remaining staff in New York and Nairobi, keeping only a small team to facilitate the winding-up process.
Former employees have sued Gro Intelligence for alleged labor violations, claiming they were laid off without notice. Additionally, the company is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for potential fraud, as reported by AgFunderNews.
Founded in 2012 by former energy commodity trader Sara Menker, Gro Intelligence provided agricultural companies with actionable insights by collecting data from governments, financial markets, and weather agencies. One of its major clients was FMCG giant Unilever.
Despite the current legal and investigative issues exacerbating the company’s troubles, Gro Intelligence’s collapse is primarily attributed to a challenging fundraising environment and issues with product-market fit. The company had unsuccessfully positioned itself as a food security platform to a small Asian country and a country in the Middle East exporting oil. It had also attempted to engage the US government under a variety of guises but was only picking up bits and pieces of business here and there. Gro is the third well-funded startup to shut down in 2024 after iProcure, a B2B agricultural inputs distributor, and Copia, a B2C e-commerce platform that entered administration in May.
