Harvest Returns, a financial technology company founded in 2016, will launch an agriculture investment platform this month.
In the platform's equity partnership format, agricultural producers and landowners are able to collect capital and maintain control over their operations, while investors passively fund them and collect returns from harvests.
Traditionally, agriculture investment requires a significant amount of experience or capital upfront. Founders and military veterans Chris Rawley and Austin Maness started Harvest Returns to remove those barriers to entry, making both the funding and investment process easier.
"By combining the benefits of agriculture with the ease of our investment platform, we are providing access to a larger pool of investors to farmland, ranchland and timberland ownership," Rawley said in a statement.
Growers submit their operations to Harvest Returns to be selected as a private placement on the platform and receive their funding after the full amount of their deal is raised. Most deals range between $500,000 to a few million dollars.
Investors can view the details of each opportunity on the platform and select the deal they want to invest in. Minimums are as low as $5,000. Investors will receive regular updates on the progress of their investments and annual distributions once crops are harvested, and they will have easy access to tax documents.
Harvest Returns does not have location-specific requirements, but rather focuses on the financial benefit of a specific deal and the grower's historical success with their product. The company currently has agreements in place to list agricultural investments in Texas, Arizona, Florida, Brazil and Belize.
"People are starting to care more and more about where their food comes from, so an investor could choose to invest in a producer in their state or region," said Maness in a statement. "When they receive regular updates on that investment, they are not getting only a financial benefit, but also an emotional one that connects them more to their community.
Transamerica debuts a new suite of strategic beta ETFs
Transamerica Asset Management, Inc. launched the DeltaShares suite of strategic beta exchange-traded funds (ETFs, which provide core equity strategies with an embedded risk-management feature.
The suite of DeltaShares strategic beta ETFs includes:
- DeltaShares S&P 500 Managed Risk ETF (DMRL) tracks the S&P 500 Managed Risk 2.0 Index, which is designed to measure U.S. large-cap equities using a managed risk strategy seeking to limit losses and capture the upside in rising markets.
- DeltaShares S&P 400 Managed Risk ETF (DMRM) follows the S&P 400 Managed Risk 2.0 Index, which is designed to measure U.S. mid-cap equities using a managed risk strategy seeking to limit losses and capture the upside in rising markets.
- DeltaShares S&P 600 Managed Risk ETF (DMRS) tracks the S&P 600 Managed Risk 2.0 Index, which is designed to measure U.S. small-cap equities using a managed risk strategy seeking to limit losses and capture the upside in rising markets.
- DeltaShares S&P International Managed Risk ETF (DMRI) tracks the S&P EPAC Ex. Korea LargeMidCap Managed Risk 2.0 Index, which offers broad international developed markets equity exposure using a managed risk strategy seeking to limit losses and capture the upside in rising markets.
According to Transamerica, DeltaShares is the "first and only suite of ETFs that track the S&P Managed Risk 2.0 Index Series so that investors can track the performance of a given segment of the equity market while seeking to control volatility."
Bats welcomes 30 iShares funds to its ETF marketplace
Bats, a CBOE Holdings, Inc. company and a leading market for exchange-traded product trading globally, welcomed 30 iShares funds to the Bats ETF Marketplace. According to the company, this is the largest single transfer the exchange has handled.
