Inside DeHaat’s third acquisition

DeHaat acquired Helicrofter for an undisclosed amount. In a conversation with YourStory, Shashank Kumar, Co-founder and CEO, DeHaat, talks about why they chose Helicrofter and the next steps for the agritech startup.

Wednesday January 19, 2022 , 3 min Read

Good Morning,

On Monday, agritech startup DeHaat acquired Maharashtra-based B2B agri-input marketplace startup, Helicrofter. This is the Gurugram and Patna based startup's third acquisition after B2B SaaS platform FarmGuide and Western UP-based farm management solution Vezamart.

"Acquisitions can be tricky decisions, influenced by a multitude of factors. What makes a particular company suitable for us is the complimentary proposition – either in terms of geographical presence or products and services on offer," explains Shashank Kumar, Co-founder and CEO, DeHaat in a conversation with YourStory.

With the integration of Helicrofter, DeHaat will expand its geographical footprint to Maharashtra, leveraging the former's resources of 2,000+ agri-input retailers and 30 sellers. On Helicrofter's platform, buyers directly purchase from the agri-input manufacturers of seeds, pesticides, fertilisers, equipment, machineries, and allied products used by farmers.

The acquisition is aimed at boosting DeHaat's presence across rural communities. The team has already amassed more than 700,000 farmers and 4,000+ micro-entrepreneurs.

"Even today, we are the only Indian company that can claim to be a full-stack agritech platform that caters to almost all aspects of the farming sector," Shashank adds. Read more.

The Interview

Founder of popular product discovery and community engagement platforms—Product Hunt—Ryan Hoover is also an investor and runs early-stage venture fund—Weekend Fund.

In a conversation with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma, Ryan talks about what led him to build Product Hunt, why he's excited about the Indian startup ecosystem, and reveals his investment thesis.

Editor’s Pick: Product Roadmap

Founded by Indian co-founders, Mayank Tewari, Prerit Srivastava and Tushar Srivastava, New York-headquartered Skeps offers its technology stack to merchants and banks to surface BNPL as part of the payments option rather than a separate credit layer.

While initially focused on disbursing loans for healthcare and home renovation sectors through online aggregators of credit, it now provides white-labelled BNPL solutions to lenders, including fintech and banks. Read more.

Tushar Srivastava, Skeps — Tushar Srivastava, Co-founder and CEO, Skeps

Startup Spotlight

Bringing crypto experts, investors together

As of 2021, the global crypto market is worth $2.1 trillion, with over 300 million users, and is expected to surpass one billion users in the next few years.

Founded in August 2021 by Amit Nayak, Ankush Rajput and Melbin Thomas, Sahicoin is a crypto native social platform that brings crypto experts and new investors together on a single platform to share crypto updates, trends, knowledge, and intelligence signals. Read more.

News & Updates

Nazara Technologies, India's first listed gaming company, said it has agreed to buy 55 percent stake in Bengaluru-headquartered Datawrkz. The acquisition is expected to add to Nazara's in-house capabilities in optimising its customer acquisition spends and enhance ad monetisation.

Mumbai-based Epigeneres Biotech, the exclusive licensee in India of Singapore-based Tzar Labs, has raised $6 million in a Series B funding round.

Fintech startup for education planning EduFund has raised $1 million in seed funding. The round was led by Anchorage Capital Partners with participation from existing investor ViewTrade Holding and other angel investors.