SEATTLE, WA - Ganaz, a participant in the 2018 class of the Techstars Seattle accelerator program, has announced that Taylor Farms is joining Andrew & Williamson and others, investing in the workforce management platform designed to address shared pain points between employers and workers. Altogether, the company has raised $2.1 million from growers and technology investors.
“Taylor Farms is deeply committed to investing in new technology that improves the overall performance of agriculture and food manufacturing,” said Ted Taylor, Vice President of Business Development for Taylor Farms. “One of the constant challenges in our industry is labor, particularly labor availability and coordination. Ganaz has been a fantastic workforce management platform, allowing our multiple operating teams to be more effective through streamlined communications and collaboration. We have thoroughly enjoyed being a Ganaz customer since 2017, and we excited to deepen this partnership through direct investment.”
In a press release, Ganaz noted that it has gained early traction among several of the leading agricultural employers in the US and Mexico. The company’s current customers include:
- Taylor Farms
- Andrew & Williamson
- Other industry-leading growers in tree fruit and berries.
The company noted, in its press release, that Ganaz offers an opportunity to provide tools for the 2.7 billion global “deskless” worker population, noting that 80 percent of the global working population—2.7 billion people—are “deskless” workers, with agriculture making up the largest single segment at nearly 900 million workers.
“We’re at a tipping point in our industry where we all have to figure out how to attract and retain great people—or our crops will go unpicked,” John Farrington, Chief Operations Officer at Andrew & Williamson, said. “Ganaz lets us take advantage of the fact that nearly all farmworkers own a cell phone now. Connecting with them before the season, pushing out important information about safety and benefits, and giving them a safe way to ask questions and provide feedback has been incredibly valuable for us.”
Andrew & Williamson invested in Ganaz earlier this year, based on the belief that the Ganaz platform will help them improve transparency within their company and in the industry, leading to more profitable growing operations and happier employees.
Ganaz boasts some impressive transparency bona fides. Hannah Freeman, CEO and Founder of Ganaz, previously spent 14 years as a leader at Fair Trade USA, working to promote win-win programs for employers and workers across the global agricultural supply chain, working with companies like Whole Foods, Costco, and Driscoll’s.
Chris DeVore, Managing Partner at Founders’ Co-op, the lead investor in Ganaz’s seed round, said, “Ganaz is addressing a huge and under-served market of growers and workers, with a modern software solution that makes life better for both. This is a massive global opportunity and we’re thrilled to partner with Hannah and her team to play a leading role in transforming the way growers and workers work together to deliver healthy food to American tables.”
Ganaz noted that it would use the newly raised funds to build out its growth, customer success, and engineering teams, providing and end-to-end labor management solution from recruiting through day-to-day administration, communication, and payments throughout North America.
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