Feb. 24, 2025
Contact: Janese Heavin, heavinj@missouri.edu
For Sami Tellatin, BS BE ’15, innovation isn’t a choice. It’s a way of life.
As the co-founder of FarmRaise — an app designed to help farmers streamline their finances — Tellatin is revolutionizing the way agriculture professionals manage their time and budgets. By reducing the burden of paperwork, FarmRaise empowers farmers to focus on what matters most: working in the field.
“Innovation is at the core of everything we do,” Tellatin said. “We’re constantly learning from our farmer users and using their feedback to improve and refine our product. If we don’t innovate, we don’t survive.”
Planting the seeds
Tellatin traces her innovative mindset back to her days at the University of Missouri College of Engineering, where she was encouraged to explore research, pursue independent projects and tackle real-world challenges. She also immersed herself extracurricular activities such as Engineers Without Borders, Sustain Mizzou, Mizzou Energy Action Coalition and the alternative breaks program.
“I’m so grateful for my time at Mizzou,” she said. “I was able to pursue a lot of hands-on work that helped me get experience and collaborate with others.”
And the fundamental skills she learned in class, such as problem solving, critical thinking and decision making, have proven invaluable on the operational side of the business.
“The engineers on our team joke with me that they see my engineering academic training,” she said. “I’m able to make decisions effectively, am organized and am analytical. I attribute that to my engineering background.”
But it was one of her earliest experiences at Mizzou that would alter her path. As a freshman, she got a job hauling food waste from campus to a compost site at Bradford Research Farm — an introduction to agriculture that would have a lifelong impact.
From classroom to co-founder
After graduating, Tellatin worked as a project coordinator for the North Central Sustainable Agriculture Program through University of Missouri Extension, a role that deepened her understanding of the challenges farmers face.
She later attended graduate school at Stanford University, where she met Jayce Hafner. The two of them, along with Albert Abedi, co-founded FarmRaise.
“We connected over our mutual respect for farmers and desire to help them become more sustainable and profitable,” she said, adding that they came up with the business idea after interviewing more than 100 farmers. “The original idea was to simplify and streamline farmer access to financial incentive programs. We grew from there.”
FarmRaise now includes features such as invoicing, payroll, financial statement generation and tax preparation, as well as an enterprise product that helps large organizations better interface with farmers.
Today, more than 20,000 users take advantage of the platform, and the company has grown to 15 full-time employees located across the United States. Their rapid success landed both Tellatin and Abedi on the prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2022.
Now, the FarmRaise team is focused on making the platform even more intuitive and impactful. They’re expanding features and scaling up strategic partnerships with governmental and private entities to better serve their clients.
For Tellatin, the drive to innovate extends beyond her business. She also shares her experiences and advice with other aspiring entrepreneurs, encouraging them to act on their ideas.
“Talk to people about it, and get feedback,” she said. “Test things out in the real world. Especially in the software world, we like to get feedback on our ideas and prototypes when they’re very early on in development. I would encourage others to lean into this philosophy and get something out there that you can iterate on.”
And take advantage of everything the university has to offer.
“At Mizzou, you can think outside of the box and get some dynamic experiences during your undergraduate education,” she said. “And you’ll have professors, advisors and peers to encourage you the entire time.”
