Clean agriculture: This startup is empowering farmers to transition away from fossil fuels

Farmers are among the most vulnerable to the climate crisis, suffering from low crop yield, post-harvest losses, and depleting water reserves. At the same time, agriculture is the second-largest contributor to India’s greenhouse gas emissions, contributing 13.4% to the country’s total emissions, according to a Ministry of Environment report.

Most farmers heavily rely on fossil fuels such as diesel to run tractors, sowing and harvesting machines, electric water pumps, milking machines etc. Vimal Panjwani and his mother Shobha Chanchlani wanted to change that.

In June 2020, they launched AgriVijay in an effort to reduce farmers’ dependency on fossil fuels while increasing their incomes. The Pune-based startup offers a marketplace for farmers to buy all renewable energy agri equipment including solar water pumps, bio-digesters and street lights—totalling 200+ products.

“AgriVijay is “empowering farmers for tomorrow” with renewable energy products in solar, biogas, and electricity,” says Panjwani, Founder & CEO.

Panjwani explains that the platform curates renewable and green energy products in a single marketplace, eliminating the need to source different functionalities from different vendors and install them externally.

“We do everything at our end. We recommend, install, and deliver the complete product including panels, pump controller, installation etc. We also bundle our services,” the Founder and CEO.

Starting up

Before starting up, Panjwani worked as the National Head at Sistema.bio, which manufactures biogas digesters. He has also worked with other founders to help them build and scale their businesses in the agritech and social impact spaces. 

When he left Sistema.bio in March 2020, the COVID-19 lockdown stripped away opportunities. Then, his mother - Shobha Chanchlani, a retired government employee from Rajasthan, insisted he start up.

Calling himself as an accidental entrepreneur, Panjwani says, “I never intended to become an entrepreneur but she encouraged me to pursue it. She also has put some initial investment into the company from her retirement savings,” he adds. 

He decided to follow his passion for helping farmers and identified a gap in the renewable and green energy space, where companies often did not extend their services to rural India and farmers.

“We understand the energy needs of farmers and help them increase savings and income, and we also mitigate the climate change issue,” he explains. 

Panjwani and Shobha were not together during the lockdown. So, they both started with small teams in Baramati, Maharashtra and Ajmera, Rajasthan, and launched in the market in November 2020. 

“We both launched our company in the market with a small team of five people and started gaining traction for our renewable energy store business model as well. We opened 11 renewable energy stores till March 31, 2021, and also had 4-5 farmers purchase solar water pumps,” he says in an interaction with YourStory.

Within four months of launching the marketplace, the company generated a revenue of Rs 22 lakh.

The products' pricing starts from Rs 849 and goes up to a few lakhs. AgriVijay has also tied up with Samunnati, a non-banking financial company, to offer EMIs and other financing facilities at subsidised interest rates to make the products affordable.

The startup decided to only sell offline and adopted a franchise model to reach farmers in villages. Today, it has 101 renewable energy stores spread across Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Gujarat.

AgriVijay also offers free solar insurance against theft and damage from natural calamities. It also offers extended warranties, including five years on solar pumps and controllers and 10 years on biodigesters, as well as after-sales service.

It has also partnered with 45 manufacturers and startups in renewable and green energy space to onboard their products on AgriVijay’s platform. 

“We have impacted 6,000 farmer families to date and have abated 20,750+ tons of GHG/CO2 emissions and brought increased savings and income of Rs 1.15 crore for farmers and rural households,” says Panjwani.

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Business and revenue

The startup has an omnichannel strategy, offering touch points such as an AI-enabled WhatsApp chatbot, call centres in the local languages, field sales/technical teams, and offline renewable energy stores. 

The company has crossed Rs 2.5 crore turnover till date. In FY24, it generated a revenue of Rs 1.1 crore.

However, the company faced challenges in hiring and retaining qualified workforce.

“Building an agritech climate action social enterprise is the most difficult and challenging thing in India considering you are at the juncture of non-profit and for-profit in terms of work while bringing impact at scale. Fundraising was challenging initially but after raising seed rounds there were investors reaching out to back us up,” Panjwani remarks.

The startup had raised a total of Rs 2.78 crore in equity, debt and grants, including from government programmes, in its pre-seed and seed rounds.

The startup says that it does not currently have any direct competitors in this space. 

“Indirectly, we compete with the dealer/distributor network of renewable and green energy manufacturers,” says Panjwani.

The way ahead

AgriVijay is currently in touch with multiple investors to raise its pre-Series A funding round.

Over the next six months, the company plans to double down on the B2B side, partnering with more manufacturers. It is also working to onboard electric mobility products on the platform, launch a mobile app for the urban audience, and renewable energy farms for urban users.

“We have recently added electric brush cutters and electric two-wheelers on the platform,” he notes.