Difficulty finding and hiring farm workers, particularly migrant workers, is hurting production on American farms. Seso, based in San Francisco and Monterrey, Mexico, offers online worker recruitment and documentation to help farms find workers and secure their visas. The company provides a payment app and swipe cards to digitize payments to workers and help them to send remittances home.
Seso raised its $26 million Series B round with backing from venture capitalist Mary Meeker, Index Ventures, NFX and SV Angels, as well as from some of Seso’s agricultural customers.
Seso’s founder Michael Guirguis told TechCrunch he was inspired to start the company after hearing his cousin, an organic farm owner, grumble about the effect of labor shortages on her growth prospects. Seso says it now works with more than a quarter of the top 100 farm employers in the US.
It is a partner of the US Department of Agriculture’s “Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program,” which aims to improve labor standards and promote healthy working conditions for permanent and seasonal farm workers.
Separately, woman-led Farmhand Ventures is addressing agricultural labor shortages in the US with a venture fund for technologies that “enhance the efficiency of farm operations while also improving the livelihoods of farm workers.”
