Granular Completes Nationwide Beta Testing, Signs Initial Customers

SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Granular announced today that it has completed a four-month intensive beta testing program with a group of charter customers across the U.S. Corn Belt. Each of the farmers who beta-tested Granular's FMS platform before the start of 2014 spring planting season have now signed on as paying customers for the next two years. Granular is now beginning to actively market its product and is in discussions with leading agriculture operators nationwide.

"We were very fortunate to design and test our product with a group of top producers who have a clear vision for how technology can help their businesses become more efficient and more profitable," said Sid Gorham, Granular's president and CEO. "We are seeing strong demand for Granular from the most professional operators in the business, especially as commodity prices drop and managing margin becomes even more critical."

Granular is rapidly building a comprehensive FMS platform to support all the critical operations and decisions involved in a complex production agriculture business, from planning to production to marketing. The industry's leading producers are adopting Granular because they believe it will help them improve efficiency, yields and profit.

In the next several months, the company will add functionality to support harvest inventory tracking, optimized equipment routing, grain marketing and accounting integration.

Powerful Analytics Capabilities from Independent Company
Granular has a team of data scientists who are building powerful operational, financial and agronomic analytics capabilities into its FMS platform. For example, the Granular system monitors local weather to automatically adjust the farm's production schedule based on modeled estimates of field conditions, crop growth stage and grain moisture. As part of its harvest feature set, Granular will help managers determine the optimal order and routing of harvest teams across the operation.

"There is a lot of talk in the industry about the value of farm data," said Gorham. "We believe that the highest value use of data is on the farm it came from, helping to improve efficiency and profit. Because we are independent and have no ties to other parts of the supply chain, our sole focus is helping our farmer customers use their own data to become more successful."

When asked why he chose to work with Granular, Jim Kline, president of Kline Family Farms in Indiana, responded, "Granular has a firm grasp on what farmers want and a vision of where the agricultural industry is heading. As our operation expands, this software will allow my business to track operations and inventory so that we know where we stand on a daily basis. Granular is a one-stop shop that encompasses all the tools that will allow a daily accountability of where we are financially compared to our budget."

Mark Bryant, Ohio-based producer and CEO of Bryant Ag Enterprises, agrees, "Granular is making us look at farming from a different and better perspective, helping us to understand and discuss what the future will look like and how to continue to grow and manage our operations for years to come."

Granular Makes Running the Farm Easier 
"The goal of our beta test was to demonstrate that the whole farm operations team would benefit from using Granular on their mobile phones to coordinate the hectic spring planting work," said Mike Preiner, Granular's VP of Product Management. "Once we get the team to use Granular to run their operation every day, data collection takes care of itself and a whole world of analytics and decision support opens up."

"We run a large, complex operation across multiple states," said Michelle Stewart, owner of Spirit Farms in Illinois. "We've tried other FMS systems, including one we designed ourselves. Granular is much easier for everyone on my team to use and it gives me full visibility into my business from any device, anywhere."

"From a standing start, Granular has built more functionality than I ever expected," commented Kris Tom, data manager of Tom Farms in Indiana. "The product's ease of use and Granular's responsiveness to feedback surpassed my experience with any other software in agriculture."

About Granular
Granular powers the world's most efficient farms. The company's advanced Farm Management Software (FMS) platform helps farmers become more efficient and make better business decisions. Granular is headquartered in San Francisco and is backed by premier Silicon Valley investors Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. For more information, visit www.granular.ag.

Contact:

Lauren Riensche, Granular
(563) 920-8985
[email protected]

Josh St. Peters, Osborn Barr
(314) 236-6964
[email protected]

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SOURCE Granular