India has the second-largest agricultural land in the world. About 60% of rural Indian households make their living from agriculture. The agro-based industry saw growth at a CAGR of 16.4% from FY10 to FY18.
Agricultural exports from India reached US$ 38.54 billion in FY19 and in FY20 (till November 2019) US$ 22.69 billion. With many initiatives for farmers, the government aims to double farmers’ income by 2022. So we have compiled a list of agriculture startups in India that are making a name and increasing their growth in quick succession.
The agriculture sector in India is suffering from a variety of problems like the use of outdated equipment, improper infrastructure, and farmers unable to access a wider range of markets with ease while making just limited profits on crop sales. Proper infrastructure and supply chain management are the more pressing concerns.
With improvements in areas of technology, digitization and startup culture growing rapidly, there are many new ones entering the Indian startup ecosystem. The Agri startups in India are providing information, techniques and efficiencies to farmers.
Let’s look at some of the best agritech startups in India
1. SFarmsIndia
2. KhetiGaadi
3. Farm2Fam
4. Crofarm
5.Bombay Hemp Company
6. Aarav Unmanned Systems
7. Aibono
8. AgricxLab
9. Cropin
10. Fasal
11. Gold Farm
12. Ninjacart
13. Waycool
14. Intello Labs
15. Agrowave
16. BharatAgri
17. BigHaat
18. Bijak
19. Clover Ventures
20. Ergos
21. FreshoKartz
22. MeraKisan
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1. SFarmsIndia
Founded In – 2018
Headquarters – Hyderabad
Founders – Kamesh Mupparaju, Linus Lindgren
Total Funding Received – $50k
Founded by Kamesh Mupparaju and Linus Lindgren in 2018, SFarmsIndia is an online web application with two core functions; listing and fraction trading.
These two functions work together creating a great synergy. On the listing platform, buyers can find/search agricultural lands and sellers can list/post the agricultural lands for sale/lease.
On the other hand, SFarmsIndia’s main USP is that it makes an agreement with the seller (Agri-realty developer) to issue fractions by digital land contract against their lands.
Each agricultural land is assigned with a digital contract and divided into 2000 fractions per acre, thereby enabling medium to small income groups to acquire lands easily. After owning the fraction, people can sell it directly through the trading platform.
Technology is the core of SFarmsIndia’s business operations. Using technology, they intend to create an effective and efficient platform for Agri-lands that can eliminate the middlemen who inflate the prices.
2. KhetiGaadi
Founders – Pravin Shinde and Vishnu Dhas
Founded In – 2018
Headquarters – Pune
Total Funding Received – Bootstrapped
Founded by Pravin Shinde and Vishnu Dhas, Khetigaadi.com is the world’s first platform where one can buy, sell, rent, compare and review tractors and farm machinery, all with a simple click. It has been established to encourage farm mechanization and usage of technology and hi-tech products in agriculture to optimize yield in fewer man-hours.
Built on high-tech angular technology, the agritech company KhetiGaadi portal is as safe as any online banking portal. To make the platform user-friendly for the farmers, KhetiGaadi has made it available as an App in 10 languages and the company’s website can be viewed in 3 different languages, English, Hindi and Marathi. It is connected with 50 lac farmers.
The concept is techno-savvy and compatible with iOS as well as Android. They reached 5 Lac downloads in 2020 and more than 8 lac downloads as of 2022.
Khetigaadi’s GMV for 2021 was INR 500 Crore. As of 2022, this agritech startup is looking to raise funding & expected to triple the GMV to INR 1500 crore and INR 2500 Crore by 2023.
3. Farm2Fam
Founder – Keya Salot
Founded In – 2019
Headquarters – Mumbai
Total Funding Received – NA
Farm2Fam is a Mumbai based startup which grows microgreens free from pesticides, herbicides and chemicals and delivers them straightly to the customer’s doorstep.
Farm2Fam aims to create awareness about the capacity of the human body to heal itself with natural nutrition. Their intention is to use technology in combination with traditional Indian agricultural methods to grow niche nutritional products.
Farm2Fam was founded in January 2019 by Keya Salot. She is a law graduate and worked with reputed law firms prior to starting Farm2Fam. This Microgreen-based agritech startup is soon going to partner with marquee brands like Pizza Express, Bay Route and White Charcoal. It sees itself in every household with a target of 300+ consumers per month.
Baishali Das Adhikari
4. Crofarm
Founder – Varun Khurana, Prashant Jain
Founded In – 2016
Headquarters – Delhi
Total Funding Received – $3.8 Million
Crofarm is an agricultural startup that was founded by Prashant Jain and Varun Khurana in May 2016 and is an F2B i.e. Farm to Business venture. Its platform has over 10,000 farmers on its network and has also partnered with Reliance Retail, Big Basket, Grofers, Big Bazar, Jubilant Foodworks and Metro Foods.
Crofarm generates revenue through commission. Starting from nearly 5% of the price in case of fewer perishables, like onions and potatoes, around 15% of the price of green vegetables, and 20-25% in case of fruits and exotics.
They procure products that have a longer shelf life from national sourcing zones and other products from regional sourcing zones. Crofarm is counted among one the leading agritech startups in India.
The company has also raised $1.5 million in seed funding from investors like Mukul Singhal and Rohit Jain, former Principals at SAIF Partners and recently raised $1 million from Smile Group for pre-series A round and entered B2B2C space with the launch of Otipy in 2020.
5.Bombay Hemp Company
Founder – Avnish Pandya, Chirag Tekchandaney, Delzaad Deolaliwala, Jahan Peston Jamas, Sanvar Oberoi, Sumit Shah, Yash P. Kotak
Founded In – 2013
Headquarters – Mumbai
Total Funding Received – $5.9 million
BOHECO – Bombay Hemp Company – is a Mumbai-based social enterprise founded in 2013 to research and promote industrial hemp. Their operations range from research, cultivation, harvesting, processing, manufacturing, trading, wholesaling, retailing, innovating, creating a market for and promoting Indian industrial hemp both across the country and around the world.
Bombay Hemp Company uses public-private partnership, contractual farming and processing, subsidiaries and collaborative research models with the aim to build an industrial hemp ecosystem.
Boheco is an agro-based startup that is reinventing the future of agriculture and sustainable living with hemp as its lens in India. The startup harnesses the power of agriculture by advocating industrial Hemp and its benefits to society.
They give assistance to local farmers in cultivating their crops by providing optimum seeds, best practices in cultivation techniques and innovating the Agro-products.
6. Aarav Unmanned Systems
Founder – Nikhil Upadhye, Suhas Banshiwala, Vipul Singh, Yeshwanth Reddy
Founded In – 2013
Headquarters – Bengaluru
Total Funding Received – $748.5K
Aarav Unmanned Systems is a drone startup that manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles. It was incubated at IIT Kanpur with a team of designers, developers, artists, and engineers from IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IISC Bangalore & IIST.
They aim to build the future of drones and their applications in the enterprise space. The company’s drones provide high-value engineering solutions to enterprises across geographic information system surveying/mapping, industrial inspection and precision agriculture. Thus, it holds the potential for making precision agriculture scalable in the nation, which is far behind in employing this type of technology.
They provide accurate 3D representations of the terrain surface and they can transform and change the way decisions are made in agriculture through their solutions to optimize irrigation, fertilization, pesticide distribution and early failure warnings. This Agritech Startup’s recent funding came in 2018 as a pre-series A round from GrowX Ventures, 500 Startups and Bellwether Advisors.
Yash Gupta
7. Aibono
Founder – Vivek Rajkumar
Founded In – 2014
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $5.5 million
Aibono is founded by IIT Madras graduate Vivek as Airwood Aerostructures and rebranded as Aibono, which is a company that provides farming-related intelligence, technology, expertise and gadgets to farmers.
The startup advises farmers on the right amount of inputs to use for maximum yield. They began in the niche area of providing Farm Management-as-a-Service whereby, a farmer gets to outsource his entire measurement, production management and decision-making processes to a Service.
The agritech company has helped in increasing yields by nearly 50% for about 140 farmers. It works within the Nilgiri hills in Tamil Nadu. Precise day-to-day interventions to farmers are given by centrally managed Data Science and Recommendation Engines enabled by its data scientists and agronomists, which results in a 30 to 50% increase in yields.
Aibono recently raised $2 million in fresh capital from Rebright Partners and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital taking its total funding to $5 Million.
8. AgricxLab
Founder – Ritesh Dhoot, Saurabh Kumar
Founded In – 2010
Headquarters – Thane
Total Funding Received – $775k
AgricxLab is a Thane-based online B2B platform founded by Ritesh Dhoot and Saurabh Kumar for connecting cold storage owners with bulk buyers for agri-products. They use smartphone imaging to assess the quality of Agri-produce through its mobile app which uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to on images to yield objective, accurate and faster quality assessment of agri-produce.
Agricx offers solutions to warehouses and enterprise clients with a plan to expand across the food production supply chain. The startup has raised a total funding of $500K from various investors, including Ankur Capital.
9. Cropin
Founder – Krishna Kumar
Founded In – 2010
Headquarters – Bengaluru
Total Funding Received – $32.6 million
Cropin is an agritech startup that integrates the agricultural sector with Information and Communication Technology by putting a network of ERP and BI i.e. Business Intelligence across rural India.
It is a Full-Stack Agritech organization providing smart SaaS-based solutions to agritech businesses globally. Cropin collaborates with the different value chain participants along the supply chain to monitor the farm produce status closely.
They provide farm businesses a farm management software and a mobile app, which enables them to do connected and data-driven farming.
It allows farm businesses to take advantage of real-time data and insight from farms with the help of an accurate view of their operation throughout the growing season and to improve financial, operational and agronomy aspects.
Cropin uses cutting-edge technologies, Big Data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Geo-tagging & Satellite monitoring to revolutionize the agri-ecosystem. This agriculture startup has raised a total of $32.7 Million in funding to date, with its recent Series C round in 2021 for $20 Million from ABC World Asia.
10. Fasal
Founder – Shailendra Tiwari and Ananda Verma
Founded In – 2018
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $9.9 million
FASAL is a Bengaluru-based agritech platform founded by Ananda Verma and Shailendra Tiwari in 2018 which is developed by Wolkus Technology Solutions and is an AI-powered platform for the agricultural ecosystem.
It records a variety of growing conditions on the farm and then uses artificial intelligence and data science to make on-farm predictions, before delivering the insights anywhere on any device including Android, iOS, tablets and the web.
FASAL has saved close to 3 Billion Liters of freshwater to date. This agritech startup is on a course to the close FY21 with 1000 farms and 20, 000 acres of land under its purview. It is also looking to hit an annual revenue run rate of $1 million.
11. Gold Farm
| Agriculture Startup | Gold Farm |
|---|---|
| Founded In | 2012 |
| Headquarters | Bangalore |
| Founders | Abhilash Thirupathy |
| Investors | Mahindra Rise, Infuse Ventures, Intellecap |
Founder – Abhilash Thirupathy
Founded In – 2012
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $2.5 million
Gold Farm is a Bangalore-based agritech company founded in 2012 which is based on the mobile app to provide agriculture farm equipment through booking farm agents. It was founded by Abhilash Thirupathy.
They provide solar water pumps for agriculturist farming in power shortfall regions in our country. Gold Farm provides an opportunity door to the farmers to book farm equipment through the call service and mobile application.
Currently, Gold Farm runs over 250 booking agents and 500 tractor owners connected to their mobile app. They aim at enhancing the growth and sustainability of farmers by structuring productive ecosystems through innovation and technology. The startup has raised total funding of $3 million.
ATHUL C K
12. Ninjacart
Founder – Ashutosh Vikram, Kartheeswaran K K, Sharath Loganathan, Thiru Nagarajan, Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Vasu Devan
Founded In – 2015
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $367.1 million
Ninjacart is one of the leading Bangalore-based agriculture supply chain companies in India. It was founded by Thirukumaran Nagarajan in 2015. It currently moves more than 60 tons of produce a day from farm to store in less than 14 hours at a lower than traditional supply chain.
Ninjacart helps more than 2,000 farmers to sell more than 80 vegetables and fruits every day to more than 800 retailers and restaurants in Bengaluru. They also claim to have wasted 4% wastage in the entire supply chain.
As of 2021, Ninjacart raised total funding of around $194.2 Million of which Flipkart and Walmart recently invested $30 Million in this agritech supply chain startup. Currently, Ninjacart is equipped to move 1400 tons of perishable from farms to businesses, every day, in less than 12 hours.
13. Waycool
Founder – Sanjay Dasari
Founded In – 2015
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $221.5 million
Waycool is India’s fastest-growing agricultural startup and food distribution company that has a network of 35,000 farmers across vegetables, fruits, rice, pulses and other food products.
It was established in July 2015 with the aim of fixing the disorganized perishable supply chain. They have a retail presence, currently present in Chennai through the brand SunnyBee, operating retail stores, mobile stores on trucks, as well as e-commerce.
They also have a large number of high-quality private label products that SunnyBee produces and brands through partnerships with sister companies.
Waycool has raised total funding of $64.9 Million, of which its recent funding came in 2021 from Lightbox Ventures ($32 Million – Series C), IndusInd Bank ($5.5 million – debt) and $7.8 Million came from Samunnati, RBL Bank and InnoVen Capital. Waycool is actively using 19 technologies for its website and has a $2 million estimated revenue annually.
14. Intello Labs
Founder – Milan Sharma, Nishant Mishra, Himani Shah and Devendra Chandani
Founded In – 2016
Headquarters – Gurgaon
Total Funding Received – $13.7 million
Intello Labs does a quality assessment of food commodities using computer vision and AI. Intello Labs help food businesses like growers, traders, retailers, food service companies, exporters, etc. to improve their customer satisfaction and cut down losses.
Intello Labs reports being aggressively growing in India while also pursuing global markets, including the likes of China, Southeast Asia, and the USA. Some of Intello Labs’ larger clients include Reliance Fresh, Dole, Ocean Spray, and many of the leading e- grocery companies in China and Southeast Asia. In 2020, Intello Labs raised $5.9 million, which is approximately Rs 45 crore, in Series A funding led by Saama Capital.
15. Agrowave
Founder – Anu Meena
Founded In – 2017
Headquarters – Delhi
Total Funding Received – $2.6 million
Founded by Anu Meena, Agrowave is an Agritech company that aims at helping farmers by directly connecting them to businesses and constructing sustainable supply chain management.
It has built several pick-up stations for farmers where they can load their products and that they don’t have to travel very far to sell them. It has a mobile app running on IOs and Android, where farmers sell their produce, the delivery trucks pick up the produce from farmer gates and pick-up stations and allow hassle-free payments. This produce is then delivered through systematic route mapping to the end customers.
Anu Meena, alumni of Delhi IIT, conceived this brainchild after witnessing the struggles and challenges of her grandfather back in Rajasthan who happens to be a farmer himself. She aims at simplifying business for farmers all over by eliminating middlemen and giving farmers the best price for their produce.
16. BharatAgri
Founder – Sai Gole, Siddharth Dialani
Founded In – 2017
Headquarters – Pune
Total Funding Received – $21 million
BharatAgri is a personalized service where farmers are educated about the crop they’re planning to plant and provides complete guidance and expertise on how to grow it.
The service includes expertise on pesticides and critical advisory on weather and soil analysis. It ensures maximum yield on production with timely analysis of production costs.
BharatAgri lends support at every stage of farming through offline and online technology including In-App chat support, Interactive voice response (IVR), and Whatsapp.
Co-founders Sai Gole and Siddharth Dialani quit their high-paying jobs in 2017 to learn about the challenges that farmers face and lived in a village near Pune to understand and implement their IIT learning experience into practice and find solutions to farmers’ woes.
With a farmer base of 3000 onboard, the agritech startup has now shifted to the B2F (Business to Farmer) model, so that they can provide better services to farmers needing technical help through digital farming.
17. BigHaat
Founder – Satish Nukala, Sachin Nandwana
Founded In – 2015
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $16.1 million
BigHaat is an Agri input and digital marketplace for farmers who seek guidance and information on various aspects of farming. The company has a wide range of services and products such as advisory services related to crop nutrition and farming, products such as seeds, agricultural machinery, and much more.
It has also built an Agri platform in collaboration with Microsoft, called Kisan Vedika which addresses issues and queries through experts in regional languages. BigHaat’s marketing team works both offline and online to acquire a customer base.
In addition to this, they offer a support channel that is also available for any queries. The farmers have to give a missed call on the designated number and the Agri expert will revert with the necessary guidance.
Founded in 2015 by Satish Nukala and Sachin Nandwana, BigHaat boasts about providing Agri advisor services and products to 4 million farmers in the country. BigHaat has raised 2 million in its latest funding series through investors such as Ankur Capital, Rockstud Capital, and Beyond Next Ventures.
18. Bijak
Founder – Nikhil Tripathi, Mahesh Jakhotia, Nakul Upadhye, Jitender Bedwal, Daya Rai
Founded In – 2019
Headquarters – Gurugram
Total Funding Received – $33.9 million
Bijak is an Agri commodities exchange platform that aims to bridge the gap between buyers and sellers. It also acts as a bookkeeping app that helps you keep all transactions and related documents on your phone.
Bijak helps buyers with quick loan disbursals and immediate payments to suppliers, with real-time, hassle-free payments. It is spread over 27 cities and union territories and covers more than 100 agricultural commodities on its platform.
The B2B platform was founded in 2019 by a team of five: Nikhil Tripathi, Mahesh Jakhotia, Nakul Upadhye, Jitender Bedwal, and Daya Rai. It has raised close to $33.9 million in funding. The ambitious startup aims at providing buyers and sellers with considerable working capital and improved logistics.
19. Clover Ventures
Founder – Arvind M, Avinash B R, Gururaj S Rao, Santosh Narasipura
Founded In – 2012
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $14.6 million
Clover Ventures is a Bangalore-based agritech company that deals in the creation and management of farm networks in Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. It aims at tapping several agricultural roadblocks faced by farmers such as complex and inefficient supply chain, consistency and quality issues, and lack of stable backend supply.
It aims at creating and solidifying an organized supply chain for fresh produce. The company currently manages over 70 acres of farmland and provides fresh produce to various fine dines, Retail stores, food processors, and online Internet Kitchens.
The logo with four leaves of the clover represents Arvind M, Avinash B R, Gururaj S Rao, and Santosh Narasipura, the co-founders of the company. The core functions of the company work on the model of the demand-backed supply chain for perishables. The key focus is on the quality of the produce, consistency, and traceability. The B2B company is about to launch a B2C service out of Bangalore and Hyderabad this year.
20. Ergos
Founder – Kishor Jha, Priyanka Kumari, Praveen Kumar
Founded In – 2012
Headquarters – Patna
Total Funding Received – $27.5 million
Ergos is one of the best agritech companies in India that facilitates storage for food grains and provides digitized solutions for the management of the same. Indian farmers who lack storage capacity often face grain loss in quantity and deterioration of quality and this leads to selling their produce at lower prices.
Ergos helps them store their grains in their “Grain bank” and facilitates loans and supply chain management through networks with NBFCs and Banks. Farmers can always withdraw their produce, even a single bag of grains, at their disposal.
The Patna-based startup was founded in 2012 by Kishor Jha, Priyanka Kumari, and Praveen Kumar. Ergos claims to support 25000 farmers so far and aims to extend its footprint outside Bihar by setting up 500-600 new grain Banks across various states. The company raised INR 81 crore in its recent funding round and is assertive in building better post-harvest and supply chain management.
21. FreshoKartz
Founder – Rajendra Lora, Nagendra Yadav
Founded In – 2016
Headquarters – Jaipur
Total Funding Received – $1.6 million
FreshoKartz is an eCommerce marketplace for farm-fresh produce, based in Jaipur Rajasthan. It offers various services such as soil advisory and products such as pesticides, seeds, fertilizers, etc for farmers.
The company works on the on-demand procurement of fresh farm produce and helps farmers avail themselves right prices. FreshoKartz offers transparent weighing and immediate payment of the produce. It also offers financing facilities for farmers during the harvesting season.
Founded in 2016 by Rajendra Lora and Nagendra Yadav, FreshoKartz is funded by iStart, an incubator run by the Rajasthan Government to support startups. Recognized by the government early on, the company has been provided with a co-working space and the best knowledge imparting mentors in the Agritech industry.
These mentors help the company find VCs and angel investors. The company has also been awarded the Bamasaha techno fund worth INR 20 lakhs and a marketing fund worth INR 10 lakhs.
FreshoKartz aims at eliminating middlemen in the process of selling fresh produce directly from the farmers to other businesses. Their B2B clientele so far includes ITC hotels, Hilton Jaipur, and several other commercial kitchens in Jaipur.
22. MeraKisan
Founder – Prashant Patil
Founded In – 2014
Headquarters – Pune
Total Funding Received – $1 million
MeraKisan is an online marketplace for a wide range of freshly produced farm products. The farm-to-fork company aims to support local farmers by providing seasonal and regional fruits and vegetables directly to consumers. Its products range from pulses and cereals to exotic and seasonal vegetables along with superfoods and organic cooking oils.
The company recently launched its own range of handcrafted juices, smoothies, salads, and refreshments under the brand Saboro Lounge. It also provides end-to-end soil advisory and other farming facilities.
MeraKisan was roped in by a joint venture between Mahindra Univeg Pvt. Ltd and Belgium-based Univeg (Greenyard Foods). Prashant Patil, the founder of MeraKisan is an IT engineer by profession and started operating in 2014.
Patil, through a fresh issue of shares, holds 66% of MeraKisan Pvt. Ltd. The company claims to have more than 500 sellers on its website. In March 2020, the Mahindra-backed company found a new investor in Ajinkya Rahane, the vice-captain of the Indian Test Cricket team.
Conclusion
This was our list of best agricultural startups in India. Hope this helps you in building your own agritech business. If you know any great agriculture startup which we should feature, please mention it in the comment.
FAQs
What is an agritech startup?
An agritech startup is a startup that uses technology in the field of agriculture to help farmers.
How many agritech startups are in India?
There are nearly 1400 agritech startups in India.
What are some of the top agritech startups in India?
SFarmsIndia, KhetiGaadi, FarmtoFarm, Fasal, Ninjacart, and BharatAgri are some of the leading agritech startups in India.
