Cooperative Ventures, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, has announced an investment in OpenTug, a logistics technology company specializing in inland and coastal marine transportation.
Cooperative Ventures, a joint venture between CHS Inc. and GROWMARK, focuses on investing in agtech startups and developing mutually beneficial commercial relationships between startups and cooperative partners that deliver long-term value for farmers, cooperatives and the broader agricultural supply chain. In addition to Cooperative Ventures’ investment in OpenTug, CHS is working to implement the barge management system to improve efficiency in the company’s supply chain.
OpenTug’s BargeOS platform is designed to improve marine logistics by streamlining commercial planning, voyage management, invoice reconciliation and reporting in one platform. The technology is designed to help shippers and carriers reduce costs by reducing idle barge days, improving estimated arrival time accuracy and minimizing demurrage charges. By combining integrated barge GPS monitoring with BargeOS Autopilot’s automated ingestion of traffic reports and operational emails, users gain a comprehensive, real-time view of barge movements and voyage activity. Together, these capabilities are intended to improve customers’ return on investment and provide information about grain supply chain operations.
“Partnering with CHS and GROWMARK allows us to accelerate digital transformation across one of America’s most critical supply chains,” said Jason Aristides, CEO of OpenTug. “With BargeOS, we’re turning data into actionable insights that help cooperatives and farmers move product more efficiently, reduce waste, and strengthen return on investment. This collaboration represents a shared commitment to innovation that benefits every link in the agricultural ecosystem.”
“Cooperatives rely on resilient, cost-effective transportation to move grain, fertilizer and other key products efficiently through the supply chain,” said David Black, executive vice president and chief information officer of CHS Inc. “OpenTug’s platform offers a digital bridge to improve visibility and coordination across marine freight networks, and this investment will ultimately help our supply chain and the cooperative system become more efficient so we can deliver more value to our farmer-owners.”
OpenTug says improved visibility and coordination can help partners move more cargo with fewer barges. The company says the added transparency can help cooperatives respond more quickly to disruptions and maintain continuity in the movement of agricultural goods.
“OpenTug’s platform has the potential to revolutionize how products move through the river system,” said Heather Thompson, enterprise marketing executive director at GROWMARK. “This investment will help strengthen the supply chains that depend on barges to move product to the right place at the right time, ultimately enabling us to better serve our farmer customers.”
OpenTug joins Cooperative Ventures’ portfolio of companies, which focuses on solutions intended to improve productivity, sustainability and profitability across the agricultural value chain.
OpenTug is the company behind BargeOS, an AI-native software platform for marine logistics. BargeOS is designed to help customers improve productivity, increase visibility and improve margins by connecting data, automating workflows and streamlining decision-making across commercial planning, voyage management, invoice intelligence and performance management. For more information, visit opentug.com.
Cooperative Ventures is a venture capital fund founded in late 2021 as a joint venture between CHS and GROWMARK, two of the largest farmer-owned agricultural supply cooperatives in North America. The fund focuses on emerging technologies and solutions intended to benefit farming. In addition to providing capital, Cooperative Ventures is committed to developing commercial relationships between startups and cooperative partners. Its teams are based in Bloomington, Illinois, and St. Paul, Minnesota, with management assistance from Touchdown Ventures. More information is available at CooperativeVenturesLLC.com.
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