October 13 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian venture capital (VC) firm Eleven Ventures invested 1 million euro ($973,688) in the Netherlands-based agricultural marketplace startup Almacena as part of a seed round, the startup told SeeNews on Thursday.
Overall, Almacena raised 3.5 million euro in the seed round to support its expansion, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
The funding round was co-led by Eleven Ventures and Greek venture capital company VentureFriends. Existing investor Acequia Capital also took part.
Almacena is a business-to-business marketplace specialising in coffee. The platform connects African producers with European buyers, eliminating middlemen in the trade.
The company will use the fresh funding to “expand further in Africa, add South American origins, and expand services to American buyers,” it said.
Almacena launched its coffee marketplace in 2021 and has over 160 co-operatives with 300,000 farmers onboarded today. The platform serves leading importers in 11 European countries.
“Eleven is excited to help the company grow exponentially in a multi billion dollar market, laying the ground for a very ambitious trading as a service platform for multiple agri products,” Ivaylo Simov, founding partner at Eleven Ventures, said in the statement.
Eleven Ventures has been investing in startups since 2012. It supports tech companies in four main area defined as fintech, healthcare, future of work and future of food.
($ = 1.0270 euro)