Arya raises US$ 21 million in Series B round led by Quona Capital

Arya, leader in post-harvest agritech and agri-fintech, raised US$21 million in Series B round which was led by Quona Capital, with existing investors LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore.

The new funding will be used to expand financing to farmers through Arya’s embedded fintech arm, Aryadhan, and to strengthen its digital post-harvest services and market linkages platform a2zgodaam. The company’s focus on smallholder farmers, combined with its ubiquitous presence across primary agri-produce markets and utilization of a digital platform with embedded finance, have enabled its rapid scale over the past few years.

Prasanna Rao, Arya’s co-founder and CEO, said of the food grains worth US$130 billion produced by India annually, there are huge losses in primary and secondary markets due to lack of storage, forcing farmers to sell off-cycle for lower returns. “These small farmers are dependent on financing for their cash flow needs but are vastly underserved, hurting their ability to store and sell their produce optimally,” he explained. “Arya’s digital solution pairs warehousing with financing and critical market linkage services to help smallholder farmers thrive.”

Ganesh Rengaswamy, co-founder and Partner at Quona Capital, said Arya is addressing a vastly underserved market of farmers in India, half of whom previously had little access to post-harvest finance. “We believe Arya’s unique approach, providing a full-service digital platform with embedded finance and differentiated efficiencies for small farmholders, will drive the future of farming in India.”

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Driving technology through a farmer-centred approach, Arya offers storage, warehouse management, embedded finance, and market linkages to agricultural producers and buyers across India. The agri-fintech’s clients include farmers, farmer producer organizations (FPOs), financial institutions, SME agri processors, commodity traders and corporate agribusinesses. The company helps farmers realize better value for their produce through village-level commodity storage, integrated financing, and market linkage services to create better options for commodity sales.