Press

Alberta, Canada, August 22, 2024 – SimpleHedge, a fintech company that makes hedging with financial markets easy for farmers, announces an oversubscribed $2 million pre-seed round. This investment is one of the largest pre-seed investments in the Canadian prairies and enables SimpleHedge to expand its Western Canadian operations in Alberta and Manitoba and to the United States.

"Western Canada is the ideal place to build SimpleHedge," says Mark, Founder and CEO. "Farmers here and in the United States are underserved when it comes to digital-first financial tools. We have modern apps for managing our investment accounts, but farmers had nothing simple for managing their commodity hedging accounts. In the absence of an intuitive solution, most farmers do not sufficiently hedge their production and put the entire farm at risk, as price volatility continues to increase driven by trade disruptions, weather events, and supply chain challenges.”

SimpleHedge is already trusted by farmers managing over 530,000 acres across Canada and the US, with over 3 million bushels hedged through the platform. The team is on track to reach farmers managing over 5 million acres in 2025. To offer their all-in-one solution, SimpleHedge partners with industry leaders like JGL Capital, RJO, and CQG.

Mark, who has previously held leadership roles at Meta and McKinsey, is confident in SimpleHedge's future. "I've worked with some exceptional teams and this is the sharpest group I’ve worked with yet."

Investment Led by Tall Grass Ventures

The pre-seed round was led by Tall Grass Ventures, an agrifood tech firm focused on supporting entrepreneurs who are committed to redefining global agriculture, and other investors include Start-up TNT, agriculture commodity brokers, and individual farmers.

“We're all about backing founders who aren't afraid to challenge the status quo. The team at SimpleHedge is doing exactly that by bringing a fresh perspective and experience from beyond Ag to risk management within production agriculture”, said Wilson Acton of Tall Grass Ventures. “We're excited to be part of their journey as they empower producers with tools to navigate an increasingly complex and important financial landscape in ways that those producers actually want to use.”

Tim Lynn, Co-Founder of Startup TNT, told us: “This is the largest single investment TNT has made in our five-year history. We had overwhelming and oversubscribed interest from our angel investor community across the Prairies, who understand both the unique needs of farmers and the complexities of commodities trading firsthand."

Farmers are enthusiastic about SimpleHedge

Farmers are already seeing the benefits of SimpleHedge. Mr. Loewen, a farmer in Manitoba, shared his experience: “I’d heard about options before, but was hesitant because I saw friends lose their shirt on margin calls. SimpleHedge helped me physically see how I could buy a put to limit my downside to just the initial investment and be protected from price drops.”

SimpleHedge allows farmers to lock-in floor prices, avoiding the risks of market volatility without the need for physical grain sales, when prices are high or get back into the market when prices are low. SimpleHedge is available on the Apple App Store and will be released on web for desktop and Android users in September. The app includes features for live monitoring of financial positions, real-time profit estimate for the entire farm, cost of production calculations, scenario analysis on options (puts, calls, and collars), customizable alerts - and all with minimum data entry required. The app uses data from several sources to gather the information you’d normally have to input manually in other applications.

We can help every farmer put more money in their pocket - on average farmers on SimpleHedge made $86,000 more year-to-date in 2024 than those not using financial hedging. It’s not only about short-term cash though: it is also about giving farmers power to achieve financial security and peace of mind through advanced hedging strategies, resulting in significantly increased profits, improved access to capital, and sustainable farm growth.