Bijak would utilise the fund on new technology and hiring fresh talent, among others.
Agritech start-up Bijak on recently announced that it has raised over USD 2.5 million (about Rs 18 crore) from various investors, including Omnivore and Omidyar Network India, for expansion of its business.
Sequoia Capital India’s rapid scale-up programme, Surge and Better Capital have also invested. Gurugram-based Bijak, which was launched in May 2019 by Nukul Upadhye, Mahesh Jakhotia, Jitender Bedwal, Daya Rai and Nikhil Tripathi, would utilise the fund on new technology and hiring fresh talent, among others.
Bijak is a platform that gives agricultural commodity buyers and sellers’ better prices, increased working capital, and optimised logistics. It brings accountability and transparency into the agricultural value chain through a buyer/seller rating system, and enables traders, wholesalers, and food processors to keep a ledger of their transactions, access transparent pricing, and improve their working capital cycles.
Customised App
The app is available in several local languages and currently caters to multiple agricultural states, including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, and Uttarakhand.
“Focused on addressing challenges such as accountability and trust in the B2B (business-to-business) agri commodity trade, we are targeting a USD 200 billion market in India which has almost 5 million middlemen. Additionally, we have customised the app for agricultural commodity traders, with terminologies used in the mandis (wholesale markets) that they are familiar with,” said Bijak co-founder Nukul Upadhye.
Mark Kahn, managing partner of Omnivore, said, “As India’s leading agritech-focused VC, Omnivore plans to help Bijak scale more aggressively, leveraging our network across the agri ecosystem to identify potential partnerships and on board strategic B2B customers.”
