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Friday / December 20. 2024
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With the Krish-e Smart Kit, Mahindra aims to track & digitise every acre & kilometer of rental activity carried out in the country.

 Krish-e Mahindra’s AgTech business launched the Krish-e Smart Kit (KSK). An after-market device, the Krish-e Smart Kit is the first-of-its-kind smart device that provides equipment owners with detailed insights of their tractors and farm equipment, through GPS enabled time tracking and remote monitoring of various parameters from the comfort of a smart phone.

A cutting-edge offering, the Krish-e Smart Kit is developed by Carnot Technologies, an Ag-Tech start-up, founded in 2015 by four alumni from IIT Bombay in their mid-20s, who as part of the IITB racing team, developed solutions to monitor the performance of race vehicles from the pit. Today Carnot Technologies is engaged in manufacturing and retailing products and services related to internet-connected devices for monitoring performance of vehicles and equipment, with M&M Ltd. having acquired a significant stake in the company.

The Krish-e Smart Kit enables equipment owners and rental entrepreneurs to sustainably improve fleet performance, improve incomes and manage maintenance costs, while reducing tractor downtime and preventing unauthorised usage of their tractors. The Smart Kit also includes an advanced trip replay feature for tracking commercial transportation and trolley activity.

The kit is brand agnostic and can be installed on any new or old brand of tractor or farm equipment, such as harvesters, rice transplanters and self-propelled sprayers. The kit is paired with an app called the Krish-e Rental Partner App and is available on the Google Play Store. In addition to tracking and monitoring, the app also offers users access to an inventory of high-end farm machinery on a pay per use basis.

Ramesh Ramachandran – Senior Vice President and Head Krish-e – Farm Equipment Sector, M&M Ltd. said, “An industry first aftermarket IoT solution, the Krish-e Smart Kit presents the smartest, most affordable and sustainable way for farmers and businesses to connect and monitor their farm equipment on the go. In its scale-up phase, with over 25,000 active users we will officially launch the Krish-e Smart Kit. Besides farmers, we invite institutions, FPO’s, government bodies and start-ups in the state to partner with us on this connected journey as we aim to digitise every acre and kilometre of rental activity. Going forward we aim to become the leading provider of connectivity for farm equipment in India.”

Pushkar Limaye – CTO, Carnot Technologies commented, “With a vision of building world-class products out of India, we came up with a small plug-and-play device for tractors to help improve their productivity using IoT, with real-time updates on smartphones. And today we are glad to see over 25,000 kits having already helped farmers digitise their businesses and adding real value on ground. And today with the official launch of the Krish-e Smart Kit, together with Mahindra, we aim to digitise Indian farming with an India-based solution, while reaching a larger audience of tractor owners and rental business owners.

With the Krish-e Smart Kit, Mahindra aims

The team have built a digital platform with a big Bharat footprint – including 500,000 app users, 4 million rental hours and 4 million acres of farmland

Mahindra Group has increased its stake in Carnot Technologies, an ag-tech startup, to approximately 69 per cent. The group has also affirmed its commitment to its vision of making Krish-e, the group’s farming as a service vertical, India’s largest ecosystem of digital products and solutions. As part of the round, an attractive ESOP pool for future employees has also been created.

Talking about the investment Senior Vice President of Farm Equipment Strategy and Head Krish-e Ramesh Ramachandran said, “This investment signals our strategic commitment to Carnot. They have been at the forefront of building for Bharat and innovating specifically for farmers. Since our last investment in late 2020, they have been our partner in leading the digital product and technology vision for Krish-e and in just under 18 months we have built a digital platform with a big Bharat footprint – including 500,000 app users, 4 million rental hours and 4 million acres of farmland. We now deepen the ties and continue building on our strengths.”

Carnot Technologies is a start-up founded by IIT Bombay alumni which developed the leading agriculture IoT platform Simha (rebranded to Krish-e Rental) which now has over 25,000 tractors, harvesters and sprayers working on over 3 million acres of land each season. The platform is protected by 5 patents and was awarded the Qualcomm Design in India award for $100K by then Minister of Cabinet for Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“The team has also developed the Krish-e app which through its unique and intuitive farmer centric design is helping farmers earn up-to Rs 15,000 more per acre.” said Pushkar Limaye, Co-founder & CTO at Carnot. “In the course of our partnership with M&M, we realised that someone had to understand our farmers, and make products that are innovative, highly cost conscious and make sense for our farmers. And if it’s not the next generation of engineers and entrepreneurs then who will build them? With this round of investment, we also want to move into top gear, in pursuit of building a great team and a data driven culture within every function.”

The team aims to invest more in their technology and people to scale rapidly in the next year. Carnot CEO and Co-founder Rohan Vadgaonkar added “With our technology and product mindset and Mahindra’s strong brand and presence in rural India, we’re perfectly poised to build India’s largest agri marketplace.”

The team have built a digital platform