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HomePosts Tagged "seed funding"
Agrotech, Company News, India, Start ups, Sustainability

Funds to be utilised for the enhancement of the technology and expanding into new geographies

Bharat Krushi Seva (BKS) an agritech company started in July 2021 with a mission to drive mass adoption of digital agriculture across India, has raised Rs 43 million in its first round of seed funding from marquee investors, namely S Amit Group, Upaya Social Ventures, Villgro, Criyagen Agri and Biotech, Mintosh Advisory and SiriusOne Capital. The funds will be utilised for the enhancement of the technology and expanding into new geographies. Currently BKS has catered to over 2 lakh plus farmers across Maharashtra and with this new seed funding, will reach out to a further 2 lakh farmers making a positive impact in their lives.

“BKS has a vision to touch the lives of 5 million farmers in the next four years as a part of their ‘Mass Adoption of Digital Agriculture’ campaign. I firmly believe that technology can make a huge difference in the lives of farmers and with our tech-based platform we envision making the lives of farmers easier and self-dependent,” said, Sharayu Lande, Founder and CEO, Bharat Krushi Seva.

“While agriculture in India has problems such as fragmentation, inefficiencies, and climate vagaries, it also brings with it infinite possibilities to create sustainable big businesses. With scientific and data driven advisory being at its very heart, Bharat Krushi Seva is passionately building a comprehensive tech-based platform to profitably solve such complex issues and help each and every farmer grow more sustainably. We are truly excited to be part of this venture, what we can only classify as, our fulfilling journey,” said Lead Investor Amit Mehta, S Amit Group.

“Despite their crucial role in feeding the world, most smallholder farmers are desperately poor and deeply vulnerable to the changes that are affecting our climate. Upaya is excited to partner with Bharat Krushi Seva to give farmers the information and tools they need to increase productivity in an increasingly challenging environment,” said Kate Cochran, CEO, Upaya.

“BKS is bringing substantial value-add to the smallholders farmers in Maharashtra through their technology based Business-to-Farmer (B2F) platform. The uniqueness of BKS platform combined with trust and affordability that multiplying quality in the farm supply chain and increasing production efficiency further reaffirmed our view that the company is on the right track and creating financial impact in the life of the smallholder farmer,” said Mohammad Azhar, Lead Government & Public Sector Initiatives at Villgro.

“We believe agritech has the potential to solve some of the biggest challenges that the agriculture industry is facing today. We are excited to invest in this highly promising start-up and support the highly passionate founders,” said Shailendra Mruthyunjayappa, Lead Investor, Mintosh Advisory & SiriusOne Capital.

“We have made a strategic investment in Bharat Krushi Seva in our quest to develop the agritech ecosystem. These investments are essential for the growth and sustainability of the agriculture industry and prosperity of the farming community,” said Basavaraj Girennavar, Chairman and Managing Director, Criyagen Agri and Biotech.

One of its flagship products, the Automated Weather alerting system, keeps farmers informed about the changing weather conditions and delivers-farm-specific, crop-specific and crop-stage specific actionable recommendations to farmers to reduce the loss in the yield. 

“We have delivered More than 5000 products till date to the doorsteps of the farmers. Our local level supply chain network of retailers and dealers helps farmers get just in time delivery at their doorstep ensuring quality brands and reduction in damage of stocks too,” said Hemant Dhole Patil, Founder and COO, Bharat Krushi Seva.

BKS aims their solutions will help farmers grow a quality yield, extend shelf life and get a better market price through farm sourcing via institutional buyers directly. This will also result in lesser wastage of food. It is not only the social and economic impact that BKS helps a farmer with, but the environment too. Suggestions by BKS have resulted in farmers saving nearly 40 per cent of their total expenditure with an increase in the total yield by 20-30 per cent of optimal quality and nutritional value with minimal use of fertilisers and pesticides.

Funds to be utilised for the enhancement

Agrotech, Company News, Finance, India, Start ups

Company plans to develop the “Suite42 Standard” in the food processing ecosystem and pilot cross border trade exports

Suite42, a B2B food processing platform, announced today that it has raised USD 4.3 million in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Omnivore and Orios Venture Partners, with participation from Titan Capital, All in Capital, Pointone Capital, and prominent angel investors including Sujeet Kumar (Udaan).

Suite42 provides contract manufacturing solutions for food processing, serving diverse B2B clients across the FMCG, agribusiness, and grocery industries. Despite the rapid increase in demand for branded food products, most food brands in India struggle with reliable manufacturing. At the same time, India has more than 40,000 food processing units that suffer from multiple inefficiencies including low-capacity utilisation, lack of quality standardization, high wastage, and limited access to working capital financing.

Suite42 plans to use the Seed funding for talent acquisition, developing the “Suite42 Standard” in the food processing ecosystem, launching raw material financing, and piloting cross border trade (exports). In the next 18 months, the startup plans to work with various B2B clients including e-commerce, D2Cs, and FMCG brands, as well as 2000 modern trade outlets across multiple cities.

Based in Bangalore, Suite42 was founded in 2022 by Rahul Ratan, Ramakrishna Cheruku, Chethan S, and Shriram S. Rahul and Ramakrishna are IIT graduates who were previously working with Udaan and Microsoft, respectively.

Rahul Ratan, Co-Founder and CEO of Suite42, commented, “We are excited to start our journey of potentially redefining the food processing industry in India. Our mission is to empower food manufacturers in India by leveraging technology and building efficient and standardized processes. Consequently, brands and consumers will have access to premium products and ingredients at affordable prices.”

Jinesh Shah, the Managing Partner of Omnivore, said, “The sector is highly unorganized with deep inefficiencies. Less than 5 per cent of India’s agricultural output is processed, preventing realization of profits across the value chains.”

Vinit Bhansali, Senior Vice President at Orios Venture Partners, said, “Suite42 is building a platform to digitize the back end of a food brand from procurement to packaging. The team is targeting a massive TAM and manages the entire supply chain for the brand.”

Company plans to develop the “Suite42 Standard”

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

Finance, Machinery - Pre-harvesting, Machinery – Post-harvesting

Tractor Junction plans to use the funding from Info Edge Ventures and Omnivore for launching physical stores for used tractor transactions across Northern India.

India’s leading rural vehicle marketplace, Tractor Junction, announced today that it has raised a USD 5.7 million Seed round co-led by Info Edge Ventures and Omnivore. Existing investors AgFunder GROW Impact Fund and Rockstart AgriFood Fund also participated in the round, alongside angels including Vikram Chopra & Mehul Agrawal – the co-founders of Cars24, Vellayan Subbiah & Arun Venkatachalam from the Murugappa Group, and Sanjiv Rangrass.

Tractor Junction is India’s largest digital marketplace to buy, sell, finance, and insure new and used tractors, farm equipment, and rural commercial vehicles. Despite the steady pace of agricultural mechanization, Indian farmers who want to buy rural vehicles have to navigate information opacity, unfair pricing, and a lack of trusted sources for smooth transactions. Dealers also struggle to reach their target customers, appropriately price used vehicles, and liquidate exchange inventory. Tractor Junction is revolutionizing the rural vehicle space by providing necessary information and vetted reviews on farm machinery, enabling users to compare shortlisted options, and bringing transparency in pricing.

Based in Noida, Tractor Junction was founded in 2019 by Animesh Agarwal, Rajat Gupta, and Shivani Gupta. Animesh, an IIM Shillong alumnus, was previously leading the North India operations of Cars24, and earlier in his career worked for Mahindra’s farm equipment business across sales, channel development, digitisation, and strategy roles. 

 In December 2021, Tractor Junction acquired rival marketplace TractorGuru (the second-largest farm machinery portal), further strengthening its leadership in this space. Tractor Junction plans to use this funding for talent acquisition, development of financial services, and launching physical stores for used tractor transactions across northern India.

Rajat Gupta, Co-Founder of Tractor Junction, said, “The rural vehicle ecosystem is at the cusp of a digital revolution and our team at Tractor Junction are excited to tackle the opportunity that lies ahead. We are humbled to have the confidence of marquee investors like Info Edge and Omnivore who bring vast experience of building scalable businesses.”

Kitty Agarwal, Partner at Info Edge Ventures, said, “The used tractor and farm equipment market is highly unorganized with a lack of established sales channels. As a result, farmers struggle with access to quality information and inventory for a relatively high value purchase.  Tractor Junction is bringing convenience, transparency, and affordability to the farm equipment buying process, thus empowering farmers and creating a winning ecosystem for all stakeholders.”

Jinesh Shah, the Managing Partner of Omnivore, observed, “By clearing the haze of information asymmetry, Tractor Junction is empowering smallholder farmers with access to valuable data and affordable high-quality farm vehicles. Tractor Junction will have a far-reaching impact on farmer profitability, and we at Omnivore are thrilled to support this journey.”

Tractor Junction plans to use the funding