Agritech startup Agricx Lab raises $5,00,000 funding led by Ankur Capital

Agricx plans to expand its crop range and quality parameters to deliver an easily accessible, quantifiable, and affordable solution for food produce quantification.

Agritech startup Agricx Lab, which uses smartphone imaging to assess the quality of agri-produce, has raised $5,00,000 in a round led by Ankur Capital. The fund raise will be used to support product development and expansion. CIIE also participated in this round of funding.

Founded in 2016, Agricx has developed a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision on images to yield objective, accurate, and faster quality assessment of agri-produce.

“The funding will help us drive product development and expansion by hiring top talent. We intend to expand the commodity portfolio along with the capability to assess other internal quality parameters,” says Saurabh Kumar, Co-founder, Agricx.

The team adds that they are using technology across warehouses for which paid pilots have been initiated with large buyers. The company is looking to expand its crop range and quality parameters to deliver an easily accessible, quantifiable, and affordable solution for food produce quantification.

Speaking of the founding team, Ritesh Dhoot and Saurabh, Dr Ritu Verma, Managing Partner, Ankur Capital said:

“They are seasoned professionals and passionate entrepreneurs, backed by a history of consistent delivery on business objectives in their previous roles. What the founders, along with the team, have demonstrated over such a short span is hugely impressive, and we're excited to be working together to create a truly world-class enterprise."

Ritu says globally there is a need to understand the quality of food we eat. She says global produce comes from geographies with low penetration of organised players; there is also use of many different seed varieties and farming practices, and a multi-point value chain.

“Objectively determining quality at all points becomes all the more important. Technology that is easy to use and can be deployed along all points of the chain provides a critical transparency in food chains that today is hard to determine. Agricx has the potential to disrupt this market,” Ritu says .

Agricx aims to create a quick, accurate, portable, and easy to use quality assessment tool that takes the subjectivity out of quality assessment and makes every transaction smoother and loss-less. Agricx currently offers a solution to warehouses and enterprise clients with a plan to expand across the food produce supply chain.

“We feel that Ankur Capital has developed a strong expertise in the food and agri space with their portfolio. They have a strong network of professionals in the space that we found valuable for our company. Also, what appealed to us was their capabilities to provide business functional expertise and help companies accelerate their growth,” says Saurabh, on the investment by Ankur Capital.