Dutch technology startup Almacena says it has raised €3.5 million ($3.39 USD, as of this writing) for the further development of a digital green coffee platform and marketplace focused on African coffees.
The investment was led by the Bulgarian firm Eleven with participation from Greece-based VentureFriends and United States-based Acequia Capital.
According to an announcement from Amsterdam-based Almacena today, part of the investment will go towards expanding the company’s coffee marketplace to buyers in the United States.
Founded by Dimo Yanchev and Karl Robijns in 2018, Almacena officially launched its online coffee marketplace in 2021, supported by offices in The Netherlands, Belgium and six East African coffee-producing companies.
The company pitches benefits both to coffee buyers and coffee producer groups by promoting traceability through digital transactions, direct negotiations and online contracts.
“We believe that in the future commodity trading will be disbanded to allow for service competition, direct procurement and value redistribution,” Yanchev said in an announcement of the funding round. “Almacena aims to lead that change, starting with coffee. This round will help us to prove on a global basis that disintermediation in agriculture supply chains works.
Almacena is joins a growing group of tech-focused companies, largely concentrated in the coffee-buying world of the global north, that has received venture capital funding for online green coffee marketplaces or platforms.
According to Almacena, the marketplace currently has more than 160 coffee cooperatives comprising some 300,000 coffee farmers in its system.
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