CrowdFarming connects sustainable farmers directly with the people who eat their food, cutting out the middlemen and backing regenerative agriculture. Working with founders on a mission like that is our idea of a good day.
After a €15M round with QImpact, Seaya and Triodos in 2021 and a €15M EIB venture loan in 2023, the company has been accelerating the digitisation of more than 200 European farms.
When they got in touch, their people team was stretched and weeks of searching had produced nothing. The brief described, essentially, a unicorn: technical and a leader, into regenerative agriculture, and unfazed by a conversation about Stripe over coffee. What they had found so far was tumbleweed.
The first thing we did was sit down with them (virtually) and ask the awkward questions. What was genuinely essential? What could be learned during onboarding? What culture were they actually hiring into?
With the role redefined and a stronger job description, we restarted the search. Seven days later we presented two strong candidates. One of them signed inside a month.
More than 500 days on, he leads the payments squad. And yes, we are told he still has no fear of Stripe over coffee, though these days it comes with home-brewed kombucha.