AgNext raises pre-Series A funding from Kalaari Capital

Agritech startup AgNext has raised around $4 million in funding in the last 12 months, with plans to expand product portfolio along with geographic expansion.

AgNext Technologies, Chandigarh-based agritech startup, has raised a pre-Series A round of funding from Kalaari Capital to further expand its product portfolio and aid geographic expansion. Though, the quantum of funds raised was not disclosed, with this infusion, the startup has raised total funding of around $4 million over the last 12 months.

AgNext, which is a portfolio firm of impact venture capital fund Omnivore, is an agricultural sensing solutions startup that collects spatial, temporal and spectral data across the agricultural and food value chain. It helps growers and food processors to improve their productivity, quality and profitability.

AgNext has developed an integrated digital platform through which growers and downstream players (food processors, aggregators, commodity traders) can improve their quality, build traceability, and link payments seamlessly. It is currently focussed on horticultural, floricultural, and plantation crops, as well as select row crops, with an initial customer base across India and strong inbound interest from other geographies.

Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari, said “AgNext is a great example of India-first innovation in precision agriculture that can scale globally. We, at Kalaari, believe that AgNext’s cost-effective and unique technology can offer tremendous savings to agribusinesses and affiliated growers both at pre and post-harvest stages by improving quality and traceability across the agri value chain.”

Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, CEO of AgNext, said, “We are happy to join hands with Vani and have a renowned generalist VC fund like Kalaari as an investor, alongside a sectoral fund like Omnivore. We intend to scale our team and solutions deployment at a rapid pace over the coming year.”

Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner at Omnivore, added, “We are excited to have Kalaari as a partner in AgNext’s journey, and look forward to creating a more vibrant agrifood tech ecosystem in India with them.”

AgNext was founded in October 2016 by Taranjeet Singh Bhamra and Mrigank Sharad. It was previously incubated at STEP IIT Kharagpur and received seed funding and acceleration support from a-IDEA, which is managed by the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) in Hyderabad.