Bengaluru-based agritech startup Vegrow has today raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Matrix Partners India and Ankur Capital with participation from Better Capital, Titan Capital as well as a clutch of angel investors including Sanjiv Rangrass, CEO of ITC’s agri-business division, Rohit MA, Founder of Cloud 9, and others.
Founded in April this year by Praneeth Kumar, Shobhit Jain, Mrudhukar Batchu and Kiran Naik, Vegrow aims to build the world’s biggest asset-light farm by partnering with small farms on a profit-sharing model.
Vegrow helps farmers increase their net earnings by leveraging technology across different stages of the farming cycle. The company helps them in crop planning, provide access to quality inputs, monitors their adherence to best practices and ultimately sells their harvest to the right set of buyers.
Commenting on the funding round, Praneeth Kumar, co-founder of Vegrow in a statement said,
“Our collective experience of working on multiple agri initiatives led us to realize that, with the right set of tech interventions, farming can be a highly remunerative business. We validated this hypothesis by farming on our own, and in this process, we also developed a deeper understanding of the nuances of farming.”
Speaking of the vision for Vegrow, Shobhit Jain, co-founder of Vegrow said,
“From the humble beginning of farming ourselves, we now see a vision of becoming the world’s largest farmer. We are partnering with farmers and building value chains for identified commodities. We are investing in farm tech and supply chain tech to help us realise a higher value for our farmers, all of this is rallied around a single point agenda which is to build and serve India’s largest farmer community.”
Affirming her confidence in Vegrow, Ritu Verma, co-founder and managing partner, Ankur Capital said,
“We are excited to kickoff of our second fund by partnering with Vegrow. We have spent a lot of time in the agtech sector and most solutions do not get to the heart of the challenge – managing demand led production across fragmented farms. The teams’ depth of understanding the market, coupled with their approach to use technology to drive the scale is what we feel sets them apart. We look forward to be a part of the next phase of their journey and are excited to be partnering with Matrix and other investors and leveraging their experiences to build the farms of tomorrow.”
On the other side, Tarun Davda, managing director, Matrix India, said,
“Agriculture is one of India’s largest industries, and the lack of organization in the space clearly outlines the vast opportunity available. Vegrow’s model of aggregating fragmented farms, to help unlock economies of scale with technology-led interventions, significantly increases the earning potential of their partner farmers. We are excited to partner with the founders – Praneeth, Shobhit, Mrudhukar and Kiran, and our co-investors to help build the world’s biggest asset-light farm,”
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