The problem
A wheat farmer in Anatolia needs fertiliser in March and earns in July. Village dealers bridge the gap — at around 45% annual cost — because banks consider smallholders without collateral unlendable. The credit exists, but its price eats the harvest margin.
How it works
Farmers compare input prices on Tarfin Mobile and buy seed, fertiliser, and chemicals at 800+ partner dealers with payment due after harvest. Tarfin underwrites each advance with farm-level and dealer data at far lower rates (~29%), then bundles the season’s receivables into asset-backed securities bought by institutional investors — a structure first proven with a Turkish family office pool arranged via ÜNLÜ & Co.
Pain points
Seasonal cash-flow chasms, dealer credit priced like distress debt, and a banking system with no smallholder scorecard.
Business model
Tarfin keeps a single-digit spread on the credit it extends while dealers keep their customer relationship; securitising receivables through local investment banks frees the balance sheet to fund the next planting season.
Challenges
Turkey’s high-inflation, high-rate environment compresses every basis point of spread; a bad harvest year can impair whole receivable pools at once; and the Romania expansion must rebuild credit models on thinner local data while diversifying funding through partners like Symbiotics.
Funding
- Raised: $8M pre-Series B bridge (Dec 2021) led by Yara Growth Ventures with Quona Capital, Elevator Ventures, Syngenta Group Ventures, Collective Spark Fund, and Wamda — earmarked for data-science hiring, Romanian launch, and dealer products (company blog).
- Valuation: MISSING.
Latest — December 2023
On 7 December 2023 Tarfin Romania announced a two-year loan partnership with Switzerland’s Symbiotics Investments to expand microfinance lending to 200+ small and medium-sized Romanian farmers — diversifying Tarfin’s funding base beyond Turkish capital markets as its Romania operations scale.