Bengaluru-based agritech startup Vegrow on Monday said it has raised USD 13 million in a series A investment round co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Elevation Capital. Existing investors Matrix Partners India, Ankur Capital, Better Capital and Titan Capital also participated in this round.
Founded by four IITians Praneeth Kumar, Shobhit Jain, Mrudhukar Batchu, and Kiran Naik in 2020, Vegrow scaled rapidly among both farmers and B2B customers, resulting in nearly 20x top-line growth with a presence in over 30 cities, Business Standard reported. The funding would help the firm to expand to 100 cities, invest in technology and launch new products. The company addresses challenges around farmland under-utilization and supply fragmentation for farmers and delivers consistent quality along with fill rate to customers. While India’s B2B agrimarket is attractive, it is also a complex maze of fragmented supply with over 120 million farmers growing across 30 states, Vegrow said.
The company leverages technology across different stages of the farming cycle to increases the net earnings of partner farmers. It also helps in crop planning, gives them access to quality inputs, monitors their adherence to practices, and ultimately sells their harvest to the right set of buyers.
“At Vegrow, we focus on select products as compared to building a large basket. Each of these products is a multi-billion dollars’ opportunity. This enables us to go deep in the product value chain and unlock massive growth in this sector. In fact, we have become one of the largest companies for pomegranates in the country in less than a year. We are excited to expand to 100 cities, invest in technology and launch new products with this fund raise,” the company said in a statement.
The agritech platform plans on unlocking the power of the agri value chain, initially focusing on the $50 billion fruits and high-value vegetables segment. Ninjacart and Waycool are the two largest companies in the space. Ninjacart has the backing of Walmart, Tiger Global and ABG Capital and Waycool has raised close to $80 million across several institutional rounds.
