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HomePosts Tagged "Ankur Capital"
Agribusiness, Climate, Finance, Funding, World

The round was led by The Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) and Equator, alongside the Asian Development Bank Ventures (ADBV) and existing investors including Ankur Capital.

Headquartered in Luxemburg, IBISA, a Climate Insurtech company has closed a $3 million funding round to scale its parametric insurance solutions for weather-related risks in Asia and Africa. The round was led by The Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) and Equator, alongside the Asian Development Bank Ventures (ADBV) and existing investors including Ankur Capital. This strategic investment will empower IBISA to make parametric insurance more accessible.

With the global cost of extreme weather events on agriculture estimated to be between $10-15 billion annually as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, IBISA is providing simple and efficient parametric insurance products to help those affected by the climate crisis. Leveraging innovative satellite and actuarial technologies, IBISA designs and operates parametric insurance products that promote financial resilience in regions where communities are the most vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events. The company is placing a special emphasis on India, since establishing a local presence there in 2023.

Currently, IBISA offers a suite of innovative climate coverages tailored to meet the needs of multiple stakeholders worldwide. These include agricultural-focused insurance products, as well as typhoon insurance, and loan protection for financial institutions. Additionally, IBISA has developed a groundbreaking heat stress product insurance initially designed for dairy farmers, primarily in India, that is currently being expanded in other countries, such as Bangladesh.

Maria Mateo, CEO of IBISA, explains: “Since the beginning at IBISA, we have functioned with great agility as product innovators and bringing these products to market efficiently. This is what drives us. This is our DNA. Now, we are entering the industrialisation phase of our journey. With the backing of this fundraising effort and the support of both existing and new investors, our goal is to amplify our product offerings, expand within our current markets, and explore new markets.

Tamer El-Raghy, Managing Director of ARAF, adds: “We’re honoured to co-lead this investment round in IBISA with Equator and excited to partner with a world-class entrepreneur like Maria. African farmers are among the most negatively impacted by climate change and the need for low-cost parametric insurance products is a must-to-have for those farmers to be able to absorb a climate shock and IBISA’s cutting-edge technology helps developing low-cost insurance products for those farmers. This investment is an invaluable addition to ARAF’s portfolio and we look forward to supporting IBISA’s regional growth.

Nijhad Jamal, Managing Partner of Equator, explains: “Investing in IBISA aligns with our strategy to back innovative ventures providing critical climate adaptation products and services. IBISA’s technology and business model specifically enable it to scale access to a broad range of affordable parametric insurance products across emerging markets.”

Thitirat Sittakaradej of ADB Ventures states: “IBISA’s cutting-edge approach leverages satellite data analytics and advanced risk modelling to make parametric insurance accessible and affordable for climate-vulnerable communities. In Asia and the Pacific, where increasingly frequent climate events often go uninsured, there is a growing need for platforms like IBISA that deliver fit-for-purpose solutions designed to seamlessly integrate with distribution channels. We are excited to support IBISA in its mission to advance climate risk insurance, a crucial way of fostering meaningful climate resilience in the region.”

Ritu Verma, Managing Partner at Ankur Capital, explains: “It’s been an exciting journey working closely with IBISA over the last two years, as they leveraged their deep technical expertise in parametric insurance to scale their offerings and launch innovative new products to insure vulnerable communities and small businesses against adverse climate events. We look forward to continuing our support to IBISA’s vision of transforming climate insurance across Asia, Africa and the Pacific.”

The round was led by The Acumen

Agri Genomics, Agrotech, Foodgrains, Opinions

By Suraj Nair, Lead (TechSprouts), Ankur Capital

Food shortages arise more frequently owing to unpredictable crop yield losses caused by biotic and abiotic stresses. With advances in molecular biology and marker technology, a new era of molecular breeding has emerged that has greatly accelerated the pace of plant breeding. High-throughput genotyping technology and phenotyping platforms have enabled large-scale marker-trait association analysis, such as genome-wide association studies, to precisely dissect the genetic architecture of plant traits. Large-scale mapping of agronomically important quantitative trait loci, gene cloning and characterisation, mining of elite alleles/haplotypes, exploitation of natural variations, and genomic selection have paved the way towards genomics-assisted breeding (GAB). With the availability of more and more informative genomic datasets, GAB would become a promising technique to expedite the breeding cycle for crop improvement.

Agriculture remains the mainstay of human civilisation, providing sustenance and livelihoods across the globe. However, the growing population along with deteriorating climatic conditions have raised serious questions about current agricultural practices. Frequent droughts, heatwaves and floods have resulted in crop losses, lower yields and diminished nutritional quality. Traditional agricultural practices which are highly water-intensive and resource-consuming, have become highly unsustainable. This has created an ever-increasing demand for improved seeds and crop varieties, whether to increase yields for a growing population, enhance climate resilience with the onset of anthropomorphic climate change, or to protect against a plethora of pests.

Conventional plant breeding techniques, although long-standing, have drawbacks. One key disadvantage is the lengthy and expensive process of variety development, which can take over a decade. It involves laborious experiments, field trials, and the analysis of individual traits. This manual process is cumbersome.

Over the past decade, the agricultural industry has exhibited gradual signs of change. One prominent trend in agricultural research and development over the past two decades has been the rapid emergence and adoption of advanced seed breeding tools as well as genetic editing techniques, such as CRISPR. These techniques enable us to sequence a plant’s genome and analyse its growth and behaviour at a more granular level. The advancements in sequencing techniques, bioinformatics, and the ability to manipulate large datasets have led to the advent of a new paradigm: genomics-assisted breeding (GAB).

GAB relies on genomic data, which has been extensively accumulated since the sequencing of rice in 2006. The availability of this data has significantly improved gene-mapping strategies, particularly in our ability to correlate genomic data with phenomic performance. This understanding has expedited the process of trait discovery, making it possible to breed plants with specific traits in mind. For example, it is now feasible to develop a new rice variety with enhanced amylose content through targeted breeding efforts.

GAB can take one of two broad forms: the first is a highly advanced form of conventional varietal creation achieved through controlled crosses between specific parent plants, and the second is through direct genetic modification of plants with the aim of introducing desirable traits. Both approaches offer great versatility, allowing for the breeding of novel traits in crops, even without genetic engineering. An example of this is HarvestPlus, an international research programme that has developed hybrid corn varieties with reduced vitamin A deficiency.

To read more click on: https://agrospectrumindia.com/e-magazine

By Suraj Nair, Lead (TechSprouts), Ankur CapitalFood

Agrotech, India, Opinions, R&D

 By Suraj Nair, Lead (TechSprouts), Ankur Capital

How do we feed 10 billion people worldwide by 2050? Sounds simple enough? Produce more food, right? Sadly, it isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Agriculture is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), uses the largest amount of water sources and is one of the highest polluting activities. Simply growing more food is unsustainable. So, let’s start answering the question by putting things in perspective:

There is ample evidence to suggest that we are already growing enough food to feed more than 10 billion people. Despite this, hunger exists. The problem is not so much about food production as it is about a lack of efficiency in agri-food systems across the board.

Further, climate change is sending global climatic systems into a state of flux and rapid change. Agriculture is extremely sensitive to shifting weather patterns, droughts, excessive rain and other climatic aberrations, which makes it acutely sensitive to the effects of climate change.

Systemic inefficiencies in agri-food systems are associated with various parts of the value chain, ranging from agri-inputs to crop development and final food production. Traditionally, addressing these inefficiencies has involved the use of digital technologies to collect and distribute data and improve the value chain with data-driven decision making.

However, the last decade has seen the advent of synthetic biology as a new innovative approach towards improving agri-food systems. Furthermore, synthetic biology can not only address inefficiencies, but also make agriculture more climate-resilient.

What is the synthetic biology approach?

Vitamin A deficiency is a major health issue across the world, more so in countries limited to rice as their staple food. Two scientists in the 1990s decided to find a disruptive solution to this. They fortified the rice with beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, by genetically engineering the conventional rice crop. Known as the Golden Rice Project, this is a great example of the synthetic biology approach, wherein natural biological systems are engineered to result in certain desired outcomes.

Using advanced techniques in genetic engineering, systems biology and bioengineering, synthetic biology provides disruptive innovative solutions for the most complex problems in the agri-food value chain–developing biological stimulants and pesticides, advanced crop development with climate resistant traits and efficient food production.

While this seemed impossible just a decade ago, synthetic biology has seen a major transformation. DNA sequencing and gene synthesis costs have reduced by more than 100x and faster gene sequencing techniques such as NGS have been developed. All this has led to a significant increase in the data on genomics. This data is being used to develop specific interventions in the agri-food value chain.

To read more click on: https://agrospectrumindia.com/e-magazine

 By Suraj Nair, Lead (TechSprouts), Ankur CapitalHow

Finance, India, Start ups

IBISA is scaling its operations in India with operations in Odisha, Karnataka, Telangana for coverage against excess rainfall, excess wind speed and drought.

 Agri insurtech startup IBISA announced that Ankur Capital, an India-based leading early-stage venture capital fund focused on transformative technologies in deeptech and climate tech has joined its seed round. Luxembourg-based Insurtech startup IBISA is on a mission to empower the Agri value chain players with innovative weather protection insurance solutions.

The company is also in talks with a number of large lenders, food processors, and Agritech clients across different geographies to mitigate their credit risk against default, reduce their supply chain risks and increase their sustainability practices in agriculture and strengthen farmer connection with smallholder farmers in India and abroad.

Founded in 2019, IBISA started its operations in India with the DHAN Foundation to provide parametric insurance against drought coverage in Tamil Nadu. Fast forward to now, IBISA is scaling its operations in India with operations in Odisha, Karnataka, Telangana for coverage against excess rainfall, excess wind speed and drought. They have also opened a registered office in Feb 2022 in Bengaluru.

Speaking on the investment, Ritu Verma, Partner at Ankur Capital mentioned, “The unavailability of data has hampered the growth of the agricultural insurance industry in developing countries for decades. Legacy crop insurance involved long manual processes making them impractical for developing markets where smallholder farming is the norm, and parametric insurance has historically been unviable due to the lack of detailed climate-related datasets. We are excited to partner with IBISA to transform the scale of available parametric insurance options in countries like India with a vast addressable market.”

“Farming is an integral part of both our societal and economic infrastructure. The impact that the war in Ukraine is having on food prices and food security seriously underscores the importance of global agriculture. And yet the support isn’t there. With IBISA, we sought to create technology that would help reduce costs for the active players in the insurance space. Finding a way to responsibly protect farmers in the event of extreme weather, by slashing distribution and operating costs, making it affordable to many groups in the value chain.” said Maria Mateo Iborra, CEO & Co-founder, IBISA.

Apart from India, IBISA has its operations in New Zealand, Guatemala, Senegal, Philippines, and other African countries. With strong insurance and reinsurance partnerships across different geographies and tailor-made products for lack of rain, excess rainfall, extreme temperatures, excess wind speed and cyclones, IBISA is able to address the needs of various Agri value chain players.

IBISA is scaling its operations in India

Agri Genomics, Agrotech, Finance, India, Start ups

 Seed funding was led by Ankur Capital to build a platform for the discovery of new sustainable crop varieties.

India/UK-based Agri-Genomics start up, Piatrika Biosystems has raised $1.2 million in a seed round led by Ankur Capital. The company is bringing sustainable seeds and agri chemicals to market faster and cheaper. The investment will be used to build a strong Product Development team, also for more profound research, and to accelerate the productionising and commercialization of MVP. ​

Piatrika Biosystems is incubated out of NIAB (Cambridge, UK) & ICRISAT (Hyderabad, India) and working with Researchers, Seed companies & Research institutes. Founded in 2019 by Vasudev Kumanduri and Phani Yarlagadda, Piatrika Biosystems is also building a new innovative cloud-based enterprise Platform-As-A-Service (PAAS) for agri-genomic discoveries and plant breeding decision support, program designing, and monitoring. The seed discovery platform is supported by novel technologies in computational biology and data science, integrating this with autonomous phenotypic, temporal, and spatial data capture for more accurate analysis helps enhance the discovery process. The company aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and commercial enterprise solutions.

Vasudev Kumanduri, Co-Founder & CEO, Piatrika Biosystems, said, “There remains a significant disconnect between state-of-the-art research and its practical implementation. This means that while there has been ground-breaking research in recent years in computational biology / genomics, data science, cloud and instrumentation, this important knowledge has not been applied in a timely practical manner in agriculture. There is an urgent need to translate these research advances into practical benefit for the agriculturist, the consumer and ultimately the planet through modern, sustainable and ethical food production.”

Ritu Verma, Partner, Ankur Capital said, “We are excited to partner with Piatrika on their journey to enable and create new seeds through computational biology. With the challenges that agriculture faces both from climate and increased food demand, innovation in the seed sector is critical. With advances in computational biology, we see this as a critical tool to bring new seeds to market quickly.”

 Seed funding was led by Ankur Capital