India-based AgriTech firm Arya raises US$60 million in Series C

India-based AgriTech startup Arya has raised US$60 million in equity and debt funding in its Series C financing round. The equity component amounts to US$46 million was led by Asia Impact SA, a Luxembourg-based investor and existing investors-Quona Capital and Lightrock India.

The remaining US$14 million came in as a part of debt funding from investors including ResponAbility, Geneva-based development finance institution and US Development Finance Coporation.

According to the Prasanna Rao, Arya’ co-founder and managing director, the latest funding round raises the eight-year-old startup’s valuation to US$300 million.

Fresh funding will be used by the firm to enhance its technology and hire more people in the tech department. It will also use its funds to penetrate deeper into domestic geographies

The investment in Arya marks Quona Capital’s second investment in the AgriTech segment following its investment in Tarfin, an agri-inputs financing platform based in Turkey. According to Quona, “Our investment in Arya falls within Quona’s embedded finance thesis, where we see FinTech playing an integral role in the evolution of the post-harvest value chain.”

About Arya

Arya was founded by Prasanna Rao, Chattanathan Devrajan, Anand Chandra. Prior to Arya, the founders created the warehouse receipt financing business in India and wrote the playbook for Indian agri-finance.

The startup offers an integrated post-harvest platform that provides warehousing, financing, and market linkage solutions, with a focus on smallholder farmers in primary and secondary markets.

The grain commerce platform has more than 5 million tonnes of storage capacity across 10,000 warehouses in 21 Indian states, helping, aggregators, farmers, food processors, and end-user corporates avoid post-harvest losses.

The firm’s warehouse is designed to allow farmers to store their grain for about three months with insurance coverage. The process of moving the produce from the farm to the nearby Arya warehouse is also monitored in real-time.

Last year in November, Arya launched its BNPL service for commodity purchase to help mitigate the age-old challenges of finance in the commodity buying space.