[Funding alert] Agritech startup Nutrifresh raises $5M in Pre-Series A round from global investors

Nutrifresh, a Pune-headquartered agritech startup focusing on hydroponically-grown produce, has raised $5 million in a Pre-Series A funding round of funding. 

The funding is led by Theodore Cleary (Archer Investments), Sandiip Bhammer (Managing Partner, Green Frontier Capital), Sky Kurtz (CEO and Co-founder of Pure Harvest UAE), Mathew Cyriac (Florintree Advisors and ex-MD of Blackstone India), Dr Soumitra Dutta (Dean Elect, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford), Shaishav Dharia (Regional CEO, Lodha Group), Karan Goshar (Samarthya Investment Advisors LLP) among others, for setting up India’s largest soil-less farms. 

As per the official statement, the funding will be used to scale-up farm operations, implement complete traceability and transparency of produce, for marketing, and creation of an integrated farmtech platform. 

Sanket Mehta, Co-founder, Nutrifresh Farm Tech Farms Pvt Ltd, said, 

“Team Nutrifresh is extremely committed to bringing focused hydroponic farming which is robust, tech-enabled, IoT (Internet of Things)-based, and gives consistent production. The funding in the agtech space is the proof of concept encircling the fact that residue-free and quality veggies are most critical in urban lifestyle and Nutrifresh is focused on bringing quality food security.”

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“With the current round of funding, Nutrifresh aims to enhance the production capacities and bring in standardisation in the production process thus, scaling the farms with requisite SOPs to gain a higher competitive edge. Nutrifresh wants to establish itself as a household brand,” Sanket added.

Co-founded by agripreneurs Sanket Mehta and Ganesh Nikam, Nutrifresh's vision is to provide consistent pesticide-free hydroponic produce that is nutrient-rich. The startup says it is focused on quality and has attained certifications like ISO, FSSAI, APEDA, HACCP, and GLOBAL GAP. 

Nutrifresh has an existing facility under protected cultivation which claims to use high-quality seeds from Israel and the US. At these facilities, the air is supplied in controlled measures, water is RO-purified, and nutrients are water-soluble. The entire production is controlled right from procurement of seeds, germination, nursery, harvesting, packaging, and delivery of the produce to the end-user. The produce reaches the consumer within 24 hours of harvest.

Boasting 42+ SKUs (stock-keeeping units), Nutrifresh is supplying its products to over 100 B2B (business-to-business) aggregators in the Indian market and to new-age trade aggregators and delivery partners like Nature’s Basket, Big Basket, Swiggy, Kissan Konnect, and  Zomato Hyperpure.

Over 80 percent of their farm workforce is women and Nutrifresh aims to skill them with the most modern techniques and achieve complete self-sustenance.  

Sandiip Bhammer, Managing Partner of Green Frontier Capital, said, 

“Agritech and foodtech are both big focus areas for our climate mitigation-focused venture fund and we are constantly looking to explore and invest in innovative businesses run by dynamic entrepreneurs with compelling business models. Nutrifresh is all of these and more. But what struck us as being most unique about Nutrifresh was that it was building out an extensive knowledge repository on a wide variety of products through its proprietary agricultural operating system at the largest single-location controlled-environment agricultural facility in the Western region of India (and directly selling to almost 15,000 households in the twin cities of Mumbai and Pune).” 

“With our strong experience in the agtech sector, we believe there is unmet demand in the healthy produce segment, and we are happy to guide Nutrifresh in its journey to become the largest precision farming player in India and bringing hydroponically grown produce to consumers across India,” added Sky Kurtz, CEO and Co-founder, Pure Harvest, UAE.