Delhi-based agritech firm Crofarm raises bridge round of $500K

Tech-based agri supply chain startup Crofarm raises $5,00,000 bridge round as it gears towards closing its Series A.

Delhi-based agri-supply chain startup Crofarm has raised $5,00,000 bridge round from Vinay Mittal, Chief Strategy at HT Media; Ramit Sethi from Strongbox Ventures and other HNIs. Existing investors Pravega Ventures, FactorE Ventures and Ashish Chand of Yukti Securities also participated in the round.

The 2017 Tech30 startup was launched in April 2016.

With this round of funding, Crofarm is gearing towards closing its Series A.

Crofarm buys fresh fruits and vegetables directly from farmers and supplies them to online and offline retailers. Currently working with Metro, Jubilant Foodworks, Big Bazaar, Grofers, BigBasket and local fruit and vegetable shops, the tech-based startup has thousands of farmers and more than 300 small and medium retailers on its platform.

"Most of our growth is coming from commodities that are known to grow in specific regions in the country - like apples from Himachal, grapes from Maharashtra and kinnow from Rajasthan," said Varun Khurana.

The Delhi-headquartered startup has offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru as well.

The company claims it has an annualised topline of Rs 15 crore in Delhi-NCR alone, and is aiming for Rs 50 crore run-rate within a year.

Angels including Rajan Anandan, MD of Google India and Jitendra Gupta, MD of PayU India invested about $1.5 million seed fund in the startup when it was barely a few months old. The company has also raised Rs 5 crore in pre-series A round led by US-based venture development firm Factor[e]. Rajan Anandan and Jitendra Gupta also invested in this round.

Crofarm was founded by Varun Khurana and Prashant Jain, and this is their second venture together. Their previous venture was MyGreenBox, a smartphone-based grocery delivery platform, which they exited to SoftBank, backed by Grofers in 2015.