[Funding alert] Agritech startup BigHaat raises over $2M in pre-Series A round from Ankur Capital, Beyond Next Ventures

Bengaluru-based BigHaat has raised over $2 million in pre-Series A funding round. The startup will use the capital to scale its data and technology. The company is going to be hiring across various departments in its business, and aims to engage over 10 million farmers across India over the next 24 months.

Sachin Nandwana, Co-founder of BigHaat, said in a release, “I predict that in the next two-to-three years, every family will have at least one smartphone. That will be a game-changer for digital platforms,making technology accessible to farmers.”

The current round also saw participation from Rockstud Capital, BigHaat’s existing investor Ankur Capital, and angel investors.

Founded in 2015 by Sateesh Nukala and SachinNandwana, BigHaat is an agri-inputs ecommerce player. The duo was inspired by their agriculture family background and decades of experience developing technology and products at MNCs.

BigHaat’s mission is to digitise the agriculture inputs ecosystem and empower farmers with access to high-quality agriculture inputs. It leverages science, data and technology to provide data-led crop advisory to farmers.

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Sateesh Nukala, CEO of BigHaat, said, “The traditional agri-inputs supply-chain is a broken experience, causing financial distress for the farmer. Technology can address this serious problem and transform a farmer’s pre-harvest journey into a profitable one.”

Its digital platform currently engages over three million farmers across India. BigHaat’s platform provides farmers with omni-channel access to advisory and products. It achieves this through digital touch-points (mobile app/web), a missed call for non-internet users, and feet-on-street presence. It offers vernacular advisory for rural users in multiple regional languages.

Tsuyoshi Ito, CEO, and Akito Arima, Agri/FoodTech Lead Capitalist, Beyond Next Ventures said,

"BigHaat is using its technology to build and enable the agri-supply chain in India by connecting farmers with quality suppliers. We are excited to support BigHaat to become India's largest digital ecommerce platform in the agriculture sector in the near future. We look forward to partnering with existing and new investors and leveraging their expertise on the journey forward."