Indigo Ag lays off 150 U.S. workers including Memphis employees

Indigo Ag let go of 150 employees including an unspecified number in Memphis.

It is the first cutback by the farm tech startup based in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Bloomberg news service reported the layoffs and said an Indigo official confirmed the job cuts were spread primarily among its head offices in the Boston area, its operations center in Memphis and tech center in North Carolina's Research Triangle. The official did not specify the number of layoffs in each location.

The company said it intends to gear up Marketplace, the grain exchange located in part in Memphis. It links farmers and grain buyers.

A statement released Friday by an Indigo official says:

"Indigo’s mission is to harness nature to help farmers sustainably feed the planet. In service of this mission," the statement says, " Indigo is focusing resources on the fastest growing aspects of the business which are delivering the most value for our customers — specifically Indigo Carbon and Indigo Grain Marketplace, which currently serves over half of all grain buyers in the U.S. as customers.

"We have eliminated some roles and reallocated resources accordingly," the statement says. "We expect our employee base to continue to grow as our business expands and we remain committed to the City of Memphis."  

Indigo hasn't yet made use of the PILOT tax cut in Memphis requiring it employ 625 workers.

In December 2018, the company announced it would spend $6.6 million and create more than 700 new jobs in Memphis through 2021. The investment covered locating Indigo's North American operations center in 60,000 square feet of space in an office building at 50 South B.B. King Blvd.

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In January, Indigo announced it raised $200 million from investors including Memphis-based FedEx Corp., Pacific Western Bank and earlier investors. The money was earmarked for growing Grain Marketplace.

At the time, Indigo announced "the platform has seen month-over-month transaction growth of 50%-100% during the second half of 2019. Since its public launch in September of 2018, over $300 billion worth of bids has been placed through Indigo's Grain Marketplace." 

Indigo has raised $850 million in total from investors. The firm engineers seeds coated with natural substances intended to ward off pests or provide special traits such as withstanding drought.