At this year’s International Agricultural Show in Paris, our president Didier Rousseau had the opportunity to speak with Clément Le Fournis, co-founder and managing director of Agriconomie: an opportunity to discuss hyper-growth and the future development projects of one of the startups we support at FAMM.
Agriconomie, the 5th most successful start-up in terms of growth this year (80% growth), is now the leading European marketplace for farmers and producers. So how do we explain the significant growth over recent years of this new leader in e-commerce? Producers and farmers are increasingly turning to new technologies: 67% of farmers in France use digital technologies almost daily as part of their operations. Agriconomie has become an essential partner for farmers. 350,000 out of a total of 400,000 farmers visit the Agriconomie.com site every month, representing 370,000 farms.
Over the past 5 years, our founder Didier Rousseau has followed and supported the development of Agriconomie which has become an important platform. With 30 million euros in turnover and nearly a hundred employees, Agriconomie has reached maturity on the national level, and growth prospects now lie in the development of new services and internationally.
The global development of the e-commerce market in France and in Europe has allowed Agriconomie to establish itself as a leader and also now to offer its white-labelled e-commerce platform on third-party sites. The wide range of agricultural products offered by Agriconomie (seeds, fertilizers, animal nutrition, spare parts for agricultural machinery …) covers all the needs of agriculture professionals. Agriconomie is also able to widen its areas of research to include various agricultural sectors, as well the issues of traceability, insurance, bank loans, with a view to offering ever more services to help farmers increase their profitability.
The vision remains unchanged: helping farmers to improve profits, both with the products sold on the platform but also with all the useful information and services available, to help them better understand and integrate the challenges related to transparency and short supply chains. This profitability must also work for innovation in the agricultural world. As Clément Le Fournis reminded us during the most recent MaddyKeynote organized by Maddyness, the media site dedicated to innovation and startups, “What is holding back innovation today is farmers’ income. Once physiological needs have been taken care of, safety is the next need on Maslow’s pyramid and farmers are not there yet. We must pay our farmers better so that they can innovate.”
Watch the video of Didier Rousseau, founder and president of FAMM, talking with Clément Le Fournis, co-founder and and managing director of Agriconomie.
