[Funding alert] Ergos receives fresh fund of Rs 22.5 Cr from UK's CDC Grp

Agritech startup Ergos on Wednesday said it has received Rs 22.5 crore ($3 million) from the UK's CDC Group as the closure to its Series-A round, which constituted Rs 81 crore ($11 million).

Earlier in March, the Ergos Series-A round of funds included Rs 35 crore ($4.9 million) investment from Aavishkaar Capital and Rs 23.5 crore ($3.1 million) from Chiratae Ventures, the company said in a statement.

Chiratae Ventures led the Series A round with an investment of Rs 23.5 crore, whereas Aavishkaar Capital, the Impact Investing arm of the Aavishkaar Group, invested an additional Rs 15 crore. The equity round is expected to be a Rs 80 crore raise with another institutional investor set to join the round.

The agri startup has been building a grain bank model that has been piloted in Bihar, which enables farmers to digitise their foodgrain and also provides them doorstep access to end-to-end post-harvest supply chain solutions by leveraging its technology platform.

The Ergos platform operates like a bank and offers storage, digitisation, credit and liquidation facility to farmers and has consistently helped them achieve significantly higher incomes for their produce.

"We are building Ergos primarily to extend post-harvest support to small and marginal farmers on storage, credit and market linkages at farm-gate. We are leveraging technology to empower farmers and enable them to be key decision takers with respect to their crop produce," it said.

Ergos founder and CEO, Kishor Jha said, "We are excited to have CDC onboard and along with the continued support from Chiratae Ventures and Aavishkaar Capital. We intend to rapidly scale our geographic footprint and remain steadfast in our desire to cater to millions of farmers directly at farm-gate over the next few years."

CDC Group Head (South Asia Private Equity Funds), Craig Gifford also said, "Investing to support small-holder farmers and improve their livelihoods is a strong demonstration of how we use our capital at CDC."

(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)