To increase its profitability, the agriculture supply chain company Waycool has terminated the employment of more than two hundred people across all departments. This is the third wave of layoffs that have been implemented at the corporation situated in Chennai.
Waycool’s businesses are all working hard to put their strategies into action to achieve profitability. A further simplification and automation of roles and structures is included as a component of this. A spokeswoman for Waycool stated that this will be an ongoing procedure at all times.
There was no statement from the corporation regarding the number of employees who were terminated. A total of more than 370 workers were terminated from their positions during the two previous firings, which took place in July 2023 and February of this year respectively.
According to a well-known media outlet, which was the first to report on the news, the layoffs have affected employees in the cities of Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, as well as staff working for the company’s two subsidiaries, CensaNext and BrandNext.
Why Did the Company Decide to Initiate This Move?
Waycool was reportedly in the process of negotiating a new round of funding on the order of more than fifty million dollars, which would have resulted in the company’s valuation being in the range of $900 million to $1 billion. The negotiations, on the other hand, did not succeed. The company’s most recent stock round resulted in a valuation of $700 million.
It is estimated that Waycool has received approximately $160 million in investment at this point from a variety of sources, including Lightrock, International Finance Corporation, FMO, and 57 Stars.
Several headlines in the media earlier this week brought attention to the fact that Waycool was having difficulty scaling and was unable to acquire a fresh round of funding. Even though the company has not yet submitted its annual report for the fiscal year 24 (FY24), it has reported a 62% increase in its operational revenue, which went from INR 772 crore in FY22 to INR 1,251 crore in FY23. The company continued to suffer losses, which increased by 89% to a total of INR 685 crore in the fiscal year 23.
Delayed Payment Hampers Brand Name
The situation has become worse as a result of unfulfilled payment obligations to various vendors, such as millers, logistics partners, and service providers such as SGSs. A report in the media stated that payments to vendors were made rotationallyover the previous three months; however, this practice has completely ceased since June because collections from customers have been delayed.
Several times in the past, salaries have been delayed, and the employer has not yet processed the payslip for June. As a result of the drought of funding, the payments from customers have become stalled, as mentioned in a media report.
Today, there are a large number of startups in the B2B E-commerce industry that provide businesses with goods and services from other businesses. There are more than 6.6K startups in this industry, which includes those companies as well which operate as e-distributors, marketplaces, and listing platforms.
If you’re in the B2B industry, you must have heard the names of prominent investors such as 500 startups, Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital, Techstars, and Plat Tech Center. These are some of the most active investors in the B2B E-commerce industry with numerous investments.
Speaking of the industry, we have presented you with the list of B2B E-commerce startups in India in this article. So, let’s get started with it!
Udaan is a prominent Indian business-to-business E-commerce platform that started in the year 2016. The company operates in a wide range of categories such as electronics, home and kitchen, lifestyle, pharma, FMCG, staples, toys, fruits and vegetables, and general merchandise.
The headquarters of Udaan is established in Bengaluru, India. As per recent media reports, the company gained a valuation of $3.1 billion. This further includes the venture partners of GGV Capital, Moonstone Capital, DST Global, Altimeter Capital and Tencent, Octahedron Capital, and many more.
Being revolutionary in freshly producing supply chains directly from the farmers to the businesses all across India, Ninjacart is built with advanced technology. The company is considered a pioneer in solving one of the major supply chain problems of the world through advanced technology. They guarantee the supply of products from farmers within 12 hours only.
Because of this innovative supply chain method, the farmers benefited from a 20% enhanced revenue stream, payment within 24 hours, and transparent weighing. While, the retailers enjoy competitive pricing, high-quality graded produce, and doorstep delivery.
OfBusiness
Founded
2015
Founders
Asish Mohapatra, Bhuvan Gupta, Ex Chandranshu Sinha, Nitin Jain, Ruchi Kalra, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, and Vasant Sridhar
Headquarters
Gurgaon, India
Category
Fintech, NBFC, Lending
Website
ofbusiness.com
OfB Tech – Top B2B Ecommerce Startup in India
OFB Tech, commonly known as OfBusiness is driven by innovative technology that facilitates raw material procurement and credits it for SMEs with a key focus on infrastructure and manufacturing sectors.
This affects the purchasing behavior of SMEs and brings out better products at better pricing, within better timelines to customers along with comprehensive support both offline and online.
The key materials that OfBusiness provides are chemicals, metals, Agri commodities, polymers, petrochemicals, and building materials.
Additionally, OFB Tech provides SMEs access to services like purchasing raw materials, cash flow-based financing, using the NBFC’s Oxyzo Financial Services, etc.
Being an Indian business-to-business marketplace, Zetwerk is built for manufacturing items. The company sells goods such as parts of a crane, chassis of various machines, doors, and ladders. It mainly operates to serve those businesses of casting, fabrication, forging, and machining.
Recently, the company has closed a significant amount of funding rounds based on its operations across the nation and benefiting local businesses to find customers all across the world. In recent reports, $210 million was raised by Zetwerk in its Series F financing round led by Greenoaks Capital in December 2021.
ShopX
Founded
2015
Founders
Amit Sharma, Apoorva Jois
Headquarters
Bengaluru, India
Category
Ecommerce
Website
shopx.in
Founders of ShopX – Top B2B Ecommerce Startup in India
ShopX is counted among the fastest-growing B2B e-commerce platforms and was founded in 2015 by Apoorva Jois and Amit Sharma. The company is pretty famous among retailers as it provides tons of benefits to them. It was developed in a way to ease the use of technology for organizing commerce and make it accessible and preferable for the needy one.
ShopX has brought social and economic impact on the economy of India and highly values long-term sustainability in this sector.
With its proprietary technology, the company has transformed retailers by creating a technology-enabled platform that contains all the services required by retailers in engaging more customers. Through ShopX, retailers get access to the latest products and various services.
Bizongo was founded in 2013 by three IIT graduates, Ankit Tomar, Aniket Deb, and Sachin Agrawal, as a digital marketplace for all those holistic B2B packaging solutions. The company transforms the shattered, unorganized B2B segment with the unique concept of customized goods.
Today, Bizongo provides packaging, apparel, textiles, and various other contract manufacturing products to the network of more than 1500 curated manufacturers.
In addition to this, the company offers supply chain automation, digital vendor management, and supply chain financing to enterprise customers through its proprietary digital platforms of Partner Hub, Procure live, and Artwork flow.
Being a unicorn, Infra.Market is a construction-based solution that creates the largest multi-product building materials brand across India. Through the usage of advanced technology and scaling innovation, Infra.Market has been transforming the whole ecosystem. They produce a wide range of lifestyle and building material products for interior spaces.
The company was started in the year 2016 and within a few years, it emerged as one of the fastest-growing B2B e-commerce platforms in India. And as a tech-first company, Infra.Market shines in both B2B as well as B2C sectors by fulfilling a great range of requirements.
The market size of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce in India in 2021, with forecasts from 2022 until 2025 in Billion US Dollars
Industrybuying
Founded
2013
Founders
Rahul and Swati Gupta
Headquarters
New Delhi India
Category
Logistics
Website
industrybuying.com
Industrybuying – Top B2B Ecommerce Startups in India
Another widely preferred B2B e-commerce platform is Industrybuying which is an online marketplace built mainly for industrial supplies. Through this platform, users can easily browse several product categories and search using titles and brands.
As per the reports of 2015, Industrybuying hosted over 500 brands, 1000 suppliers, and around 1.5 lakh products online. Plus, the company has a great omnichannel presence that includes both online e-commerce and offline corporate customers.
WayCool
Founded
2015
Founders
Karthik Jayaraman, Sanjay Dasari
Headquarters
Chennai, India
Category
Agritech
Website
waycool.in
WayCool – Top B2B Ecommerce Startups in India
Being one of the fastest-growing Agri-Tech companies, WayCool has majorly impacted the food economy of India. It was founded in July 2015 to develop the largest food supply chain and distribution services across the world. And as per statistics, WayCool is known to impact around 500,000 farmers’ lives.
Currently, the company manages more than 900 tons of food items every day, coming from 1,00,000 clients and a farmer’s network of above 85000 across 50 Indian regions. Their services include food processing, sourcing, branding and marketing, farm inputs, and last-mile distribution.
The company utilizes the approach of a tech-enabled supply chain, by merging physical as well as digital business models.
Jumbotail
Founded
2015
Founders
Ashish Jhina, Karthik Venkateswaran
Headquarters
Bangalore, India
Category
Ecommerce
Website
jumbotail.com
Jumbotail – Top B2B Ecommerce Startups in India
By serving more than 50,000 Kirana stores, Jumbotail is a virtual B2B marketplace containing wholesale food and grocery. The company retransforms the value chain of food and grocery through the usage of data science, technology, and design. It connects thousands of grocery retailers (Kirana stores and supermarkets) with brands and staple producers.
They offer a wide range of high-quality staples, personal care, home care, and packaged food products from the leading staples producers and brands.
ShopKirana
Founded
2015
Founders
Sumit Ghorawat and Deepak Dhanotiya and serial entrepreneur Tanutejas Saraswat
Headquarters
Indore, India
Category
Supply Chain Management
Website
shopkirana.com
ShopKirana – Top B2B Ecommerce Startups in India
ShopKirana is a B2B e-commerce platform that directly connects retailers to brands with the power of technology. It aims to empower retailers by offering advanced technology, scale advantage, and operational expertise.
ShopKirana works with the idea of gathering millions of retailers and building the fastest and largest go-to-market channel for goods and services.
Eunimart, the startup is famous for helping brands and manufacturers to sell their products through prominent e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Amazon, and some local channels. Along with this, it helps in exploring the options of retail and B2B channels for sales to sellers.
Eunimart creates an end-to-end ecosystem consisting of more than 30 shipping partners and fulfillment partners across the Middle East, South East Asia, and India.
Additionally, the company offers a proper supply chain management system that includes warehouse management, global management, vendor management, and inventory management.
Apart from all this, what makes Eunimart unique is the insights they offer. This helps increase revenue for the brands triple than usual and reduces the cost by 35% using AI tools. It mainly helps by predicting sales and optimizing everything.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that the B2B e-commerce industry is growing massively with the key interest of prominent investors. There are above 3.7K startups as per the reports of 2019 and the number is surely growing.
With the large sum of funding, the industry is adopting new technologies and advancements to make it grow. In the upcoming years, we’ll see more growth and development in this sector.
FAQs
What are the 4 types of B2B?
The four main types of B2B are manufacturers, resellers, service providers, and government.
Which is the largest B2B company in India?
IndiaMART is considered the largest B2B company in India.
What are the top 10 B2B portals in India?
India’s top 10 B2B portals are Udaan, Alibaba, IndiaMART, Tradeindia, Power2SME, ExportersIndia, Amazon Business, eWorldTrade, eIndiabusiness, and Global Trade Bazaar.
Is Amazon a B2B or B2C?
Amazon is a B2C platform. It is one of the largest B2C e-commerce platforms in the world.
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
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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.
Growth Timeline of SFarms India
2. KhetiGaadi
Founders – Pravin Shinde and Vishnu Dhas
Founded In – 2018
Headquarters – Pune
Total Funding Received – Bootstrapped
Khetigaadi.com Website
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.
Growth Timeline of KhetiGaadi
3. Farm2Fam
Founder – Keya Salot
Founded In – 2019
Headquarters – Mumbai
Total Funding Received – NA
Farm2Fam Website
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Growth Timeline of Aibono
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.
Growth Timeline of AgricxLab
9. Cropin
Founder – Krishna Kumar
Founded In – 2010
Headquarters – Bengaluru
Total Funding Received – $32.6 million
Cropin Website
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.
Growth Timeline of Cropin
10. Fasal
Founder – Shailendra Tiwari and Ananda Verma
Founded In – 2018
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $9.9 million
Fasal Website
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.
Growth Timeline of Fasal
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.
Ninjacart is one of the leading Bangalore-based agriculture supply chain companies in India. It was founded by Thirukumaran Nagarajanin 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 Website
Waycool is India’s fastest-growingagricultural 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.
Growth Timeline of Waycool
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 Website
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.
Growth Timeline of Intello Labs
15. Agrowave
Founder – Anu Meena
Founded In – 2017
Headquarters – Delhi
Total Funding Received – $2.6 million
Agrowave Website
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.
Growth Timeline of Agrowave
16. BharatAgri
Founder – Sai Gole, Siddharth Dialani
Founded In – 2017
Headquarters – Pune
Total Funding Received – $21 million
BharatAgri Website
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.
Growth Timeline of BharatAgri
17. BigHaat
Founder – Satish Nukala, Sachin Nandwana
Founded In – 2015
Headquarters – Bangalore
Total Funding Received – $16.1 million
BigHaat Website
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.
Growth Timeline of BigHaat
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 Website
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.
Growth Timeline of Bijak
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 Venture Website
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.
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.
Growth Timeline of Ergos
21. FreshoKartz
Founder – Rajendra Lora, Nagendra Yadav
Founded In – 2016
Headquarters – Jaipur
Total Funding Received – $1.6 million
FreshoKartz Website
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.
Growth Timeline of FreshoKartz
22. MeraKisan
Founder – Prashant Patil
Founded In – 2014
Headquarters – Pune
Total Funding Received – $1 million
MeraKisan Website
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.
Growth Timeline of MeraKisan
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.
Ashwini
