Yara Growth Ventures invests in leading Turkish agriculture fintech Tarfin as part of USD 8M financing

Founded by Mehmet Memecan in 2017, Tarfin has grown into a critical part of the Turkish agriculture ecosystem by providing financing to both agri-dealers and farmers. Since it’s founding, Tarfin has expanded its offerings to include a mobile application for farmers to buy agriculture inputs directly from Tarfin’s mobile application. Additionally, the company is positioning for further geographic expansion.

“One of the things that we like about Tarfin is the critical role they play in providing farmers and retailers with financing to grow their businesses,” says George Roche of the Yara Growth Ventures team. “By providing credit and selling inputs through an easy to use experience and with competitive prices, Tarfin then has tremendous potential to layer on new offerings to their customers.”

One of the things that impressed the Yara Growth Ventures team the most about Tarfin was Mehmet and the Tarfin’s team dedication to their customers and their dedication to data. The company has a demonstrated understanding of customer needs and uses data to back up their decision making – be it from optimizing the customer experience to testing new business lines. When farmers who have gotten credit from Tarfin send the team baskets of fruit – the literal fruits of their labor – you know the culture of the company has been built with the farmer front of mind.

“As the company matures and enters the next phase of growth, we are particularly excited to welcome Yara Growth Ventures to our team,” says Mehmet Memecan, founder and CEO of Tarfin. “We can work together as we enter new markets and expand our services.”

Yara Growth Ventures is the only new investor in the USD 8 million financing round, joining existing Tarfin investors such as Quona Capital, Elevator Ventures, Syngenta Group Ventures, and Collective Spark Fund.

About Tarfin

Combining traditional supply channels with technology and financial resources, Tarfin makes it easier for farmers to access high-quality agricultural inputs with convenient payment terms. Since its founding, Tarfin has financed over 30.000 transactions for fertilizers, seeds, feedstuffs, and chemicals through its over 800 partner retail locations. The team at Tarfin is proud to have facilitated farming on over 1,000,000 acres. Tarfin’s asset backed security issues, where Tarfin transforms its agricultural receivables into structured investment instruments, was awarded in the "Best Structured Bond Product" category at the Bonds and Loans Awards 2019. Tarfin was founded by Mehmet Memecan in 2017 in Istanbul. https://tarfin.com/

About Yara Growth Ventures

Yara Growth Ventures is the venture investment team within Yara International ASA. The Yara Growth Ventures team invests in disruptive startups in the agri-food industry globally in order to advance the mission of responsibly feeding the world and protecting the planet. Learn more at www.yaragrowthventures.com

About Yara

Yara grows knowledge to responsibly feed the world and protect the planet. Supporting our vision of a world without hunger and a planet respected, we pursue a strategy of sustainable value growth, promoting climate-friendly crop nutrition and zero-emission energy solutions. Yara’s ambition is focused on growing a climate positive food future that creates value for our customers, shareholders and society at large and delivers a more sustainable food value chain.

To achieve our ambition, we have taken the lead in developing digital farming tools for precision farming, and work closely with partners throughout the food value chain to improve the efficiency and sustainability of food production. Through our focus on clean ammonia production, we aim to enable the hydrogen economy, driving a green transition of shipping, fertilizer production and other energy intensive industries.

Founded in 1905 to solve the emerging famine in Europe, Yara has established a unique position as the industry’s only global crop nutrition company. We operate an integrated business model with around 17,000 employees and operations in over 60 countries, with a proven track record of strong returns. In 2020, Yara reported revenues of USD 11.6 billion.