Beacon, a Toronto company that buys and runs software businesses, has acquired Ganaz, a Seattle startup that makes hiring, onboarding and payroll tools for agricultural workers and the farms that employ them. Ganaz co-founder and chief executive Hannah Freeman announced the sale on LinkedIn on October 28, 2026, GeekWire reported.
Terms were not disclosed. Ganaz now appears among the portfolio companies on Beacon's website, and Ganaz's own site carries a logo that reads "Powered by Beacon."
Freeman is leaving the company. In her post she wrote that Ganaz "is in great hands" at Beacon and that she plans to "catch my breath, spend more time with my daughter, and dream about what’s next," according to GeekWire. She did not say whether Ganaz will run as a subsidiary or whether its staff will be offered jobs at Beacon. Ganaz has about 17 employees, according to its LinkedIn page as cited by GeekWire.
What Ganaz built
Ganaz describes itself as a people management platform for agriculture, covering the path from job application to payday. Its customers are farm labor contractors, growers, nurseries, packing houses and food processors, many of which hire large seasonal crews at short notice.
The software replaces paper hiring packets with digital onboarding and signatures, and keeps a digital record of each applicant. An applicant tracking system lets employers search their labor pool and document recruiting in line with the rules for the H-2A agricultural visa program. A two-way text messaging tool translates messages between office staff and workers, so a farm can ask who is returning for the season without requiring workers to download an app. Hiring data can be exported into payroll and timekeeping systems such as Datatech, Famous and Compu-Tech.
Ganaz also offers a payroll card that lets workers receive pay by direct deposit even if they have no bank account. GeekWire said the card is a Mastercard product and that it spares workers check-cashing and high remittance fees while saving employers the cost of printing and handing out paper checks. When Ganaz raised its Series A in 2021, TechCrunch reported that the company planned to earn a share of transaction fees from the card.
In 2023 the startup served more than 250,000 agricultural workers in the US and Mexico and 100 employers, according to GeekWire, which gave Ganaz its Geeks Give Back Award that year. Taylor Farms is quoted on the Ganaz website as a customer since 2017.
“We founded Ganaz to make life better for farm workers, and we do that by building technology that agricultural employers love and can’t live without.”
The founder and the funding
Ganaz launched in 2017 and is organized as a public benefit corporation, a legal form that commits a company to goals beyond returns for shareholders. Freeman told AgFunder News in 2021 that the company had made that change earlier that year, partly because of its responsibility to the workers whose pay it handles.
Its largest reported round was a $7 million Series A in June 2021, led by Seattle venture firm Trilogy Equity Partners. AgFunder, Bessemer Venture Partners, Founders' Co-op, Taylor Ventures and Techstars also invested. At the time Ganaz had about 175,000 workers on its platform and 75 employers, TechCrunch reported.
In total Ganaz raised more than $10 million, and the 2021 round valued it at $26 million, according to PitchBook data cited by GeekWire. No later round was disclosed.
"We founded Ganaz to make life better for farm workers, and we do that by building technology that agricultural employers love and can’t live without," Freeman told GeekWire in 2023.
Who is buying
Beacon was founded in January 2024 and is led by founder and chief executive Nilam Ganenthiran, The Logic reported. In November 2025 it raised a $250 million Series B led by General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners and D1 Capital, to buy companies that make software for small businesses or for specific industries. The Logic said Beacon usually targets businesses with more than $1 million in annual revenue and promises founders it will not resell their companies within a few years.
On its website, Beacon says it is a permanent owner that adds AI products to the businesses it buys. It offers acquired companies shared engineering, sales, finance and AI teams, as well as help adding payments, banking and payroll services to their software. Beacon says its businesses together serve more than 22,000 enterprise customers and more than 5 million users. GeekWire reported that Beacon said in September that its portfolio included 45 software businesses.
Other Beacon companies include campground booking software Let's Camp and community sports software maker Power Up Sports. Beacon says on its website that most of its businesses are still run by their founders, though Ganaz will not be one of them.
What happens next
Beacon says it generally keeps the brands and customer relationships of the companies it buys, and Ganaz's website continues to operate under its own name. The site lists some features as coming soon, including automated document checks meant to flag compliance gaps before an audit.
Neither company has named a new leader for Ganaz. Freeman wrote that she would miss the team and customers and would be "cheering you on from the sidelines," GeekWire reported.
