Here's a list of agritech startups to watch out for in 2018
In the wake of the distressing news from the farming community, the spike in interest in the agritech sector, both from entrepreneurs as well as investors, looks heartening.
Is India still an agrarian economy? With vast tracts of rural land surrounding urban areas already ‘reclaimed’ for a real estate boom and setting up of manufacturing hubs, it is anybody’s guess that India still lives in its villages.
According to a 2013 census, there are now nearly nine million fewer farmers than there were in 2001. The Census split workers into four categories: cultivators, agricultural labour, household industry workers, and others. “Cultivators remain the second-largest group at 119 million after 'others' but are now less than a quarter of the total workforce, a decline of over seven percentage points over 2001,” a media report said.
Other disturbing data points to the fact that agriculture is now only about one-fourth of rural GDP --- from being close to half a decade back. And that 67 percent of India's farmland is held by the marginal farmers with holdings below one hectare.
The recent march of 30,000 farmers in Maharashtra from Nashik to Mumbai points to this distressing trend.
“The headline is about fall in overall growth, from 10 percent to 7.3 percent. The distress is located in the dip in agriculture and allied activities—from 22.5 percent to minus (-) 8.3 percent,” writes Shankkar Aiyar in The New Indian Express. As he rightly points out, “The problem in Maharashtra represents the larger issue Bharat faces. Farming needs a new viability model with backward and forward linkages. All that talk about contract/group/collective farming must walk, and now!”
Need for innovation
Interestingly, there has been a spike in interest from the startup community as far as the agritech sector goes. In 2017, $53 million was poured into agritech startups over 17 deals. This year, too, saw a few startups bagging funding for the innovation they are bringing to the farming space in areas like storage, improving supply chain, quality seed procurement, increased production, logistics and distribution, and so on.
Here’s a list of a few startups (and details of their funding records in different quarters) to watch out for that are bringing innovation in the agri sector.
Startup Name : Agricx Lab
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : Feb-2018
Amount (In USD) : $500,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Ankur Capital, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE)
Founders : Ritesh Dhoot, Saurabh Kumar
Brief description : Agriculture-focussed technology startup
City : Mumbai
Startup Name : Agrostar
Company Founded Year : 2008
Funding Announcement : Aug-2015
Amount (In USD) : $4,000,000
Round : Series A
Investors : IDG Ventures
Funding Announcement : Mar-2017
Amount (In USD) : $10,000,000
Round : Series B
Investors : Aavishkaar Venture Management services, IDG Ventures, ACCEL
Founders : Sitanshu Sheth, Khalil Shaikh
Brief description : Leading direct-to-farmer digital platform
City : Pune
Startup Name : Agrowave
Company Founded Year : 2017
Funding Announcement : Oct-2017
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Daffodil Software
Founders : Anu Meena
Brief description : Fresh produce distribution startup
City : Gurgaon
Startup Name : Airwood
Company Founded Year : 2014
Funding Announcement : May-2016
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-series A
Investors : StartupXseed Ventures
Founders : Vivek Rajkumar
Brief description : Agri Data & Analytics Platform
City : Chennai
Startup Name : Arya Collateral
Company Founded Year : 1982
Funding Announcement : Dec-2016
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Other
Investors : Aspada
Founders : Krishna B. Kotak
Brief description : Collateral Warehousing Services
City : Noida
Startup Name : Boheco
Company Founded Year : 2013
Funding Announcement : Dec-2017
Amount (In USD) : $1,000,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Ratan Tata, Rajan Anandan, Srinivaas Sirigeri, MA Tejani, Yash Kela, Nikhil Velpanur
Founders : Sanvar Oberoi, Yash Kotak, Delzaad Deolaliwala, Avnish Pandya, Chirag Tekchandaney, Jahan Jamas, Sumit Shah
Brief description : Cannabis research startup
City : Mumbai
Startup Name : Crofarm
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : Aug-2016
Amount (In USD) : $1,500,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Mukul Singhal, Rohit Jain, Himanshu Aggrawal, Ashish Gupta, Sunil Goyal
Funding Announcement : Aug-2017
Amount (In USD) : $783,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : LetsVenture, FACTOR[e] Ventures, Jitendra Gupta, Rajan Anandan
Founders : Prashant Jain, Varun Khurana
Brief description : Agricultural supply chain
City : Gurgaon
Startup Name : CropIn
Company Founded Year : 2010
Funding Announcement : Aug-2016
Amount (In USD) : $2,000,000
Round : Series A
Investors : Sophia Investment ApS
Funding Announcement : Sept-2017
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Beenext, Ankur Capital
Founders : Krishna Kumar
Brief description : Agriculture Technology Solutions
City : Bangalore
Startup Name : DayBox
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : Aug-2016
Amount (In USD) : $104,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Ashutosh Lawania, Rajul Jain, Badal Malick, Rishi Gupta
Founders : Ankush Goyal, Raman Kumar, Ashish Bibyan, Prabhat Kumar
Brief description : tech-based B2B startup fulfilling the daily requirement of fresh fruits and vegetables
City : New Delhi
Startup Name : EM3 AgriServices
Company Founded Year : 2013
Funding Announcement : Aug-2017
Amount (In USD) : $10,000,000
Round : Series B
Investors : Global Innovation Fund, Soros Economic Development Fund, Aspada
Founders : Rohtash Mal, Adwitiya Mal
Brief description : Agritech startup
City : Noida
Startup Name : Farm Taaza
Company Founded Year : 2015
Funding Announcement : Oct-2017
Amount (In USD) : $8,000,000
Round : Series A
Investors : Epsilon Venture Partners, IL&FS Investment Managers
Founders : Kumar Ramachandran
Brief description : B2B agritech startup
City : Bangalore
Startup Name : farMart
Company Founded Year : 2015
Funding Announcement : Mar-2017
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Ambarish Raghuvanshi
Founders : Alekh Sanghera, Mehtab Singh Hans, Lokesh Singh
Brief description : Agri-tech startup
City : Gurgaon
Startup Name : Farmizen
Company Founded Year : 2017
Funding Announcement : Sept-2017
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Venture Highway, Mohit Agarwal, Anuj Gupta, Alok Mittal
Founders : Shameek Chakravarty, Sudaakeran Balasubramanian, Gitanjali Rajamani
Brief description : Organic farming platform
City : Bangalore
Startup Name : FarmLink
Company Founded Year : 2014
Funding Announcement : Nov-2017
Amount (In USD) : $3,000,000
Round : Other
Investors : Pioneering Ventures, Syngenta
Founders : Sreeram Chellappa
Brief description : Agritech startup
City : Mumbai
Startup Name : Gobasco
Company Founded Year : 2017
Funding Announcement : Nov-2017
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Matrix Partners India
Founders : Abhishek Sharma, Vedant Katiyar
Brief description : Agri-tech startup
City : New Delhi
Startup Name : Gold Farm
Company Founded Year : 2013
Funding Announcement : Oct-2017
Amount (In USD) : $2,000,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Mahindra & Mahindra, Infuse Ventures
Founders : Karthic Ravindranath, Abhilash Thirupathy
Brief description : Farm Equipment Aggregator
City : Bangalore
Startup Name : Gramophone
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : Mar-2018
Amount (In USD) : $1,000,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Info Edge
Founders : Nishant Vats, Tauseef Khan, Harshit Gupta
Brief description : Agricultural inputs startup
City : Indore
Startup Name : khethinext
Company Founded Year : 2015
Funding Announcement : Feb-2018
Amount (In USD) : $5,000,000
Round : Other
Investors : Undisclosed
Founders : Phanidhar Palakoti
Brief description : Agri technology platform
City : Hyderabad
Startup Name : KisanHub
Company Founded Year : 2012
Funding Announcement : Jan-2018
Amount (In USD) : $2,430,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Notion Capital, IQ Capital, Calibrate Management
Founders : Sachin Shende, Giles Barker
Brief description : Agricultural technology startup
City : Pune
Startup Name : KrishiHub
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : Nov-2017
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : INVENT accelerator, Villgro Innovation Fund
Founders : Bhoopendra Kumar, Jyotiska Khasnabish
Brief description : Agri Tech Startup
City : Bangalore
Startup Name : Miklens Bio
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : Oct-2017
Amount (In USD) : $5,000,000
Round : Other
Investors : ASLE Technology
Founders : Santosh Nair
Brief description : Agri-biotechnology startup
City : Mumbai
Startup Name : Ninjacart
Company Founded Year : 2015
Funding Announcement : Apr-2017
Amount (In USD) : $5,500,000
Round : Series B
Investors : Accel Partners, NRJN Trust, M&S Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Mistletoe
Funding Announcement : Feb-2018
Amount (In USD) : $1,100,000
Round : Debt Financing
Investors : Trifecta Ventures
Founders : Ashutosh Vikram, Kartheeswaran K K, Sharath Loganathan, Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Vasudevan Chinnathambi, Sachin Jose
Brief description : B2B agri-marketing platform
City : Bangalore
Startup Name : Paalak.in
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : Feb-2017
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : Vishwadeep Bajaj, Harsh Kundra, Nandkumar Rane, LN Buddharaju, Anupam Tyagi
Founders : Swapnil Tripathi, Vishal Salgotra
Brief description : Agri-tech startup
City : Noida
Startup Name : RML AgTech
Company Founded Year : 2007
Funding Announcement : Jan-2017
Amount (In USD) : $4,000,000
Round : Series B
Investors : IvyCap Ventures
Founders : Rajiv Tevtiya
Brief description : Provides Agri Decision Support Solutions
City : Mumbai
Startup Name : Utkal Tubers
Company Founded Year : 2016
Funding Announcement : May-2017
Amount (In USD) : $4,600,000
Round : Pre-Series A
Investors : CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund, Zephyr Peacock India
Founders : Mukul Gulati, George Thomas
Brief description : Agri startup
City : Bangalore
Startup Name : VillFarm
Company Founded Year : 2009
Funding Announcement : Sept-2015
Amount (In USD) : Undisclosed
Round : Pre-series A
Investors : Unitus Seed Fund, Rianta Capital, R Ramaraj, Sunil Edwards
Founders : Mohan Venkateswaran, Sundarraj Mahadevan, Jagadeesh Sunkad
City : Bangalore