June 11, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

Headquartered in Ft. Worth, Texas, Harvest Returns was founded in 2016 by two military veterans to democratize the ag investment process by connecting ag investors with producers. 

Understanding that ag investment has long been a compelling asset class that has traditionally been inaccessible to individual investors, the firm has quickly become a disruptor by providing growers a streamlined, flexible source of capital, and offering qualified financiers and agribusiness entrepreneurs a curated, diversified portfolio of farms, ranches, and timberland investment opportunities. 

Since its founding, Harvest Returns has built a community of more than 5,000 investors and approximately 700 farmers, ranchers, and agribusinesses, and has distributed more than $600,000 in returns to platform investors.

“We’re passionate about helping small and mid-sized farmers start and expand their operations, while contributing towards a more resilient and healthy food system,” said Chris Rawley, CEO, Harvest Returns, who is proud of the firm’s achievement of the benchmark of $5 million in agricultural investments.

“Agriculture is a rapidly evolving space, being driven by technology, fragmented consumer preferences, and most recently, disrupted food supply chains,” noted Rawley. “We’re focusing on a few different verticals that we see offer the most growth potential for our investors, including indoor agriculture and grass-fed livestock.”

The company has been pivotal in helping grass-fed cattle and sheep producers in raising $2.5 million, and has had a string of successful and even oversubscribed investment opportunities, including a hydroponic produce operation in Kentucky, a bamboo farm in Florida, a cocoa farm in Ghana, and a hemp farm in New York State, among others.

“We are very pleased with the results of our partnership with Harvest Returns as it provided access to a base of investors outside Blackdirt’s existing network and proved to be an effective platform for raising capital,” said David Nicola, CEO of Blackdirt Farms, a grass-fed cattle operation in the U.S. Southeast that has successful completed two capital raising through Harvest Return’s platform.

The firm is also offering its Sustainable Agriculture Opportunity Zone Fund. With a hard cap set at $1 million and a buy-in set at $25,000. This fund was established to invest and create positive impact in the ag industry across disadvantaged regions of the U.S., and is operating under its mission “to achieve tax-advantaged capital appreciation in production agriculture projects that are economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable,” according to the company website. 

Not Alone

Operating under a very similar model to Harvest Returns is online farmland brokerage AcreTrader, which announced an oversubscribed $5 million Seed round in April of this year.

Like Harvest Returns, AcreTrader aims to democratize the ag investment process, but with a focus on farmland and circumventing entry barriers including sizeable capital requirements, high fee structures, and the need for farm management, keeping many from being able to capitalize upon its advantages as an asset class. 

Founded in 2018, AcreTrader aims to remove these barriers – to increase transparency and security for investors, while also removing many of the challenges of owning land, by handling all administration duties including property management, insurance, accounting, and working with farmers and improving soil sustainability.

“Farmland has quietly been one of the best performing major asset classes over the last 30 years,” said company founder Malloy in April. “Large funds and private equity groups have been rapidly moving into farmland in recent years, but it hasn’t been easily accessible to most investors. With this round of funding, we anticipate allowing even more people to invest…”

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.