Eeki Foods raises USD 6.5 mn from General Catalyst, others

Agritech startup Eeki Foods has raised USD 6.5 million (about Rs 49 crore) from investors led by General Catalyst for expansion and growth.

Among others, Avaana Capital, Better Capital, Irving Fain, CEO and Founder of Bowery Farming, Subbu Palaniappan, Director & Head of Amazon Prime India, Srinivas Narayanan, former VP Engg at Facebook, Akhil Gupta, and Amit Kumar Agarwal, Co-founders of NoBroker.com, participated in the Series A funding round.

Also read: Dabur India to induct 100 electric vehicles for last-mile product distribution

Founded in 2018, Eeki Foods aims to make farming sustainable and climate-proof using their patent-pending growing chambers that grow tasty, nutritious and residue-free vegetablesWith farms in Rangpur, Bhilwara, Talera , Nanta and Panipat, Eeki foods aims to minimise price fluctuations in market related to staples like cucumber, chillies, and tomatoes.

“The fresh funds will be used to scale Eeki to hundreds of acres. This coming year, we will focus on building the team, technology and organisational scale to make this growth a reality. “We are actively looking to establish partnerships with corporates, HNIs, and other retail farmers in Rajasthan, Delhi-NCR, and Maharashtra to build such farms across the country , Abhay Singh, CEO and Co-Founder of Eeki Foods and Amit Kumar, COO and Co-Founder of Eeki Foods said in a joint statement.

The technology with the company enables the farm’s climate to be controlled, allowing vegetables to be grown all year without being affected by seasonal variations, the company said. The patent-pending IoT (Internet of Things) control mechanism deployed on the farms, makes operations more robust, cost-effective, and less reliant on manual labour, it added. Eeki farms provide 300 per cent more yield on any barren or unused land at 50 per cent of the growing cost using 80% less water.