5 Indian Agritech Startups To Watch Out For In 2021

Agribazaar

India’s agritech startups received $136.46 Mn in funding last year, compared to $244.6 Mn in 2019. From 2014 to 2020, Indian agritech startups have received $467 Mn in funding.

In the past 5 years, India’s agritech startups have been growing in the space like never before, building farmer platforms, B2B agri marketplaces, rural fintech enterprises, farm-to-fork brands among others.

Here are a few startups to watch out for in 2021.

Otipy

Otipy (a social commerce platform by Crofarm) launched in February 2020 by Varun Khurana started to work closely with reseller partners (mainly women) to up the supply chain of fresh produce in India. The company is currently working with 500+ partner resellers mainly women across Delhi-NCR and is already serving over 1 lac customers. It further plans to onboard 5000 women within Delhi NCR and provide them opportunities to earn from home. Otipy focuses on-demand harvesting as per predicted demand to keep minimum wastage through state-of-the-art technology used for procurement, distribution, and delivery. Backed by Crofarm, Otipy has recently raised $1M from IPV and is in talks to raise $ 10 million in 2021

Agribazaar

Founded in 2016, Agribazaar delivers technology-enabled solutions to over two lakh farmers now by helping them get better prices. The startup has, since the past month, hired 200 of the 350 planned hiring this year, even amid lockdowns and massive retrenchments in almost all sectors of the economy.

As part of its service diversification, leading farm marketplace Agribazaar is planning to play a larger role in the inputs space, including selling farm implements like harvesters. The company plans to supply agri inputs like seeds and pesticides to farmers through their agri-micropreneurs on a pilot basis.

The company also plans to offer farm implements like harvesters through these micropreneurs, whose number they plan to increase to 10,000 in the next three years from the current 485. Agribazaar will soon enlist farmers of cash crops such as coffee, cardamom, and pepper.

Bijak

B2B trade platform serving the agricultural sector, Bijak, in April 2020, raised $11.8 million in its Series A round from its existing investors, including Omnivore Partners, and Tempo Ventures, Bi Fund, among others. Founded in May 2019 it aims to bridge the information asymmetry and lack of accountability across trade in agricultural activities. It enables traders, wholesalers, and food processors to keep a ledger of their transactions, access transparent pricing, optimise logistics, and improve their working capital cycles. The company’s proprietary app is available in several local languages and currently caters to the country’s agricultural states such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, etc.

DeHaat

Gurugram and Patna-based agritech platform DeHaat has raised Series A funding of $12 million led by Sequoia Capital. DeHaat offers an online marketplace to farmers. It is a technology-based platform offering full-stack agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high quality agri inputs, customised farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages for selling their produce.

Clover

Bengaluru-based greenhouse agritech startup Clover on Tuesday announced that it had raised Rs 7 crore in venture debt from Alteria Capital. Clover partners with farmers across India and markets premium quality, branded, greenhouse-grown fresh produce through B2B and B2C channels. Clover claims that its business model centres around demand-led cultivation, a managed farm network, and full-stack agronomy.

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Neel Achary is the editor of Business News This Week. He has been covering all the business stories, economy, and corporate stories.