Funding will be used to strengthen its Grain Bank for the post-harvest needs of the farmers.
Bengaluru-based agritech startup Ergos has raised INR 35 Cr ($5 Mn) in a Series A funding round from Aavishkaar Group’s equity investment arm Aavishkaar Capital. The Series A funding was expected to be a ₹100-crore round with an Aavishkaar Capital Limited Partner and a technology venture capital fund set to join the round.
Founded by Kishor Jha and Praveen Kumar, entrepreneurs from Bihar, Ergos has been building a GrainBank model that has been piloted in Bihar. The model enables farmers to digitise their food grain and provide doorstep access to end-to-end post-harvest supply chain solutions to the farmers by leveraging a technology platform. Over the last five years, the GrainBank has helped farmers achieve significantly higher incomes, according to a press release from Aavishkaar.
The release said the Ergos platform operated like a bank and offered storage, digitisation, credit and liquidation facility to farmers. Aavishkaar had provided seed funding to Ergos in 2015 from an earlier fund at the ideation stage and worked with the promoters in scaling the model.
The release quoted Kishor Jha, Founder and CEO, Ergos, as saying that the aim is to build GrainBank to serve the post-harvest requirements of all farmers, especially small and marginal farmers. The company intended to scale into nearby States and service more than a million farmers by 2025 with over 2,000 branch locations. The start-up supports more than 20,000 farmers on its digital platform and has a physical footprint in over 60 locations.
Ergos is solving warehousing problems for the farmers through its tech enabled Grain Bank that has been piloted in Bihar. Ergos is planning to utilise this funding to double farmers income and to strengthen its Grain Bank for the post-harvest needs of the farmers. The technology is used by more than 20K farmers and has a physical footprint across 60 locations.
“With the right amount of investment and strong institutional backing, we have the ability to make the Prime Minister’s vision of doubling the farmer income come true in a much shorter span. Our focus is to build this GrainBank to serve post-harvest requirements of all farmers with a focus on small and marginal farmers,” Jha said.
