Barn2Door raises $6M as demand rises for its software used by farmers to sell food online

Barn2Door CEO Janelle Maiocco. (Barn2Door Photo)

The pandemic is increasing demand for grocery and food delivery. Seattle startup Barn2Door is riding this trend and just raised $6 million to support its growth.

Barn2Door serves thousands of farmers across the U.S., helping them sell food directly to consumers with e-commerce software that manages sales, inventory, logistics, and more.

“Barn2Door was enjoying strong growth prior to the pandemic as farmers were looking to move to direct-to-market to capture more margin and own the customer relationship,” said CEO Janelle Maiocco. “The pandemic has simply added a tailwind to our growth.”

More people are shopping for groceries online as they get groceries delivered versus going to a physical store amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amazon, for example, said online grocery sales tripled year-over-year during the second quarter. Instacart is handling huge demand. Seattle startup Crowd Cow is seeing more interest for its online meat marketplace. And Portland, Ore.-based farm-to-doorstep delivery service Milk Run — which just launched in Seattle — said demand increased by 12 times since the outset of the pandemic.

Barn2Door is Maiocco’s second take on a startup for farmers. Barn2Door was founded soon after Maiocco pulled the plug on Farmstr, an organic food marketplace that connected consumers with farmers. Farmstr had a much larger scope: aggregating products, acquiring and marketing to customers, and managing and fulfilling food orders. Maiocco said previously that the model was too expensive to be profitable.

Barn2Door takes a narrower approach, focusing exclusively on making software that helps farmers connect with and sell to customers. The farmers are responsible for the rest of the process, including fulfilling and delivering orders.

Bullpen Capital led the Series A round, with participation from Quiet Capital, RAINE Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, Global Founders Capital, Sugar Mountain Capital, and others.

Total funding to date is $11.6 million.

Other Pacific Northwest-based food-related startups are also raising cash. Minnow raised $2.2 million for its contactless food delivery pickup stations; Shelf Engine raised $12 million to help retailers manage orders and reduce waste; and Dumpling raised $6.5 million for its technology that help entrepreneurs establish their own, independent grocery businesses.

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