Silo, a San Francisco-based technology-driven marketplace that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline supply chains for perishable agribusiness, announced a seed round of $3 million in capital led by Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan’s venture fund, Initialized Capital, San Francisco. Additional participation in this round was secured from Semil Shah from Haystack Ventures, San Francisco; angel investors Kevin Mahaffey and Matt Brezina and The Penny Newman Grain Co., Fresno, Calif.

Silo is replacing traditional systems with efficient, real-time technology to reduce waste, such as loss of products and product rejections and manual processes around data entry, sales and logistics, resulting in a more sustainable and profitable supply chain. By vetting and supporting both buyers and suppliers, Silo creates data-driven connections across retailers, wholesalers, foodservice companies and processors and helps them efficiently transact.

“What Silo is building has the potential to make marketing and distribution of agriculture incredibly more efficient, which is a win both for the suppliers and buyers. We’re excited to support and assist this team, as they work to move agriculture forward,” says Eric Woersching, general partner at Initialized Capital.

Silo’s AI and machine learning technology adapts to existing workflows, seamlessly automating the entire supply chain from harvest management and quality control to forecasting and negotiation through logistics and payment.

With this new capital, Silo plans to hire engineering talent to develop new machine learning capabilities, along with product features and tools to support the marketplace and increase liquidity.

“This financing will help accelerate our growth and allow us to develop Silo into a global supply chain platform with new financial and logistical tools that we’ll roll out later this year. We’re thrilled to have such an amazing group of investors and advisors to support our team and mission. Their guidance is critical to our success,” says Ashton Braun, co-founder and CEO of Silo.

“I’ve come across quite a few marketplace platforms attempting to serve different segments of the agriculture supply chain, and none of which have come close to impressing me to the degree Silo has in their tech-forward approach to reducing the friction that comes with managing all aspects of the supply chain on their platform. Silo’s deployment of machine learning streamlines the process, requiring little to no change in their users’ workflow, and removes many barriers of their platform reaching critical mass,” says Matthew Nicoletti, commodity trader at The Penny Newman Grain Co.