Agritech Startups in India are growing at a pace like never before- 5 startups to watch out for in 2021

The agriculture sector in India has evolved over the years and is now leveraging new technologies for growth. Though the government have played their part to equip the farmers with new technologies, it is the startups which have been a driving force for increasing technology penetration in the sector. The Agritech startup ecosystem in India is growing at a much faster pace than ever before.

Agritech startups are trying to fix the age-old issues of this technology-resistant sector by creating innovative models. With increasing internet and smartphone penetration levels across the country coupled with policy changes and growing interest from investors, the agritech startups landscape is mushrooming. According to media reports, the sector witnessed an 11.9 percent jump in interest from investors.

In the last five years, various startups in the agriculture segment have built farmer platforms, rural Fintech, B2B agri market places, and farm-to-fork platform among others by leveraging cutting-edge technology such as AI and IoT.

Here are five Indian agritech startups to watch out for in 2021 in no particular order.

Agrowave

This Delhi-NCR based startup is reaching out to small and marginal farmers in the hinterlands of the country. It buys fresh produce from them, do grading, sorting, and packing at their warehouse and then sells them to businesses like restaurants, cafes, retailers, and hotels among others. The startup is building a farm-to-market mobility chain through an integrated network of mobile pickup stations (MPS) at farm gates. The startup was founded in 2017 by Anu Meena has managed to increase its revenue by 32% in December 2020 with just 50 MPS. Agrowave is backed by MassChallenge.

DeHaat

DeHaat, a Patna-based agritech startup founded in 2012 by IIT alumnus Shashank Kumar and Manish Kumar offers a technology-led platform that provides end-to-end agriculture services to the farmers in the country. The startup offers customized farm advisory, distribution of high-quality agri inputs, and access to market linkages and financial services to farmers to enable them to sell their produce. DeHaat has acquired FarmGuide another agritech startup and has recently raised $30 million in funding. It is backed by a list of investors including Omnivore, RTP Capital, and Trifecta Capital Advisors.

Intello Labs

This Gurugram-based startup uses image matching and ML to measure the quality of crops. The startup offers advanced image recognition technology that can identify objects, flora &fauna, faces, and tag them in any image. Besides India, the startup is looking at opportunities in China and the US. Founded in 2016 by Milan Sharma and Devendra Chandani, the startup has managed to raise $8.5 million funding to date and is backed by an array of investors including SVG Ventures, Saamna Capital, GenNext Ventures, Omnivore, and Nexus Venture Partners.

Clover

Clover founded in 2017 by Arvind Murali, Gururaj Rao, Avinash B R, and Santosh Narasipura focuses on demand-led cultivation. The startup partners with farmers across the country and markets branded, premium quality, greenhouse-grown fresh produce through B2C and B2B channels. Clover has launched Deep Rooted. Co this year marking its entry into D2C market. The startup has raised $8.8 million in funding to date and is backed by various investors including Accel India and Alteria Capital. Clover caters to a growing vegetable and fruits market in the country by delivering clean, residue-free, and fresh produce in less than 24 hours.

Bharat Agri

Founded in 2017 by Siddharth Dialani and Sai Gole, Bharat Agri is a Pune-based agritech startup that leverages data science to provide personalized advisory to farmers. The startup is aiming to tap 67 million medium and large-scale farmers in the country who are typically growing cash crops. Bharat Agri offers tech-enabled digital services to the farmers while enabling them to increase their profitability using real-time monitoring, data science, and weather-based advisory. The startup has raised $3.3 million funding to date and is backed by various investors including Uber and Google for startups.

If you think any other company should be included in this list, please drop a note @ [email protected]