Agritech Startup DeHaat Raises $12M to Reach More Farmers In India

 Agritech Startup DeHaat Raises $12M to Reach More Farmers In India

DeHaat, an internet platform that provides full-stack agricultural services to farmers, has raised $12 million because it appears to scale its network across the Republic of India. The Series A monetary spherical for the eight-year-old Patna and Gurgaon-based startup was crystal rectifier by the cypress Capital Republic of India. Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO, and existing investors Omnivore and AgFunder, conjointly participated within the spherical. dextral Capital suggested DeHaat on this funding spherical. The startup, that began to hunt funding from external investors last year, has raised $16 million thus far and $3 million in venture debt. DeHaat (which means that village in Hindi) eases the burden on farmers by conveyance along with brands, institutional financers and consumers on one platform, explained Shashank Kumar, the co-founder 

and chief govt of the startup, in Associate in Nursing interview with TechCrunch. The platform helps farmers secure thousands of agri-input products, together with seeds and fertilizers, and receive tailored consultatory on the crop they ought to seed a season. “We have engineered comprehensive information of crop tests to supply recommendations to farmers,” he said. DeHaat, that employs 242 folks, conjointly helps them connect with two hundred institutional partners to produce farmers with capital, and once the season is over, helps them sell their yields to bulk consumers like Reliance recent, food delivery startup Zomato and business-to-business e-commerce large Udaan.

 DeHaat these days operates in twenty regional hubs within the jap a part of the Republic of India -- states like a province, province, and Jharkhand -- and serves over 210,000 farmers, said Kumar. Shashank Kumar, Amrendra Singh, Adarsh Srivastav and Shyam Sundar Singh co-founded DeHaat in 2012 The startup has developed a network of many micro-entrepreneurs in rural areas that distribute agri-input product to farmers from their regional hubs and so bring back the output to the constant hub. “We have Associate in the Nursing app in native languages and a helpline table that farmers, several of whom don’t own a smartphone, United States of America to succeed in bent on us and make a case for their pain points and desires,” he said. 

DeHaat doesn't charge any fee for its consultatory, however, it takes a cut whenever farmers use its platform to shop for agri-inputs or sell their crop yields. The startup can use the recent capital to increase its network to a pair of,000 rural retail centers, on-board additional micro-entrepreneurs for last-mile delivery and reach one million farmers by June of next year, said Kumar. DeHaat is additionally engaged in automating its provide chain and developing additional subtle knowledge analytics, he said. At stake is India’s agriculture market that values $350 billion and serves nearly one hundred million tiny and freelance farmers, aforementioned Abhishek Mohan, VP at the cypress Capital Republic of India, the VC fund that writes additional checks than anyone else within the country. “This business is on the brink of a colossal transformation due to simple regulation, farmers obtaining organized and increasing penetration of smartphones. DeHaat is leveraging these trends to make the next-gen product in agricultural provide chain,” aforementioned Mohan in a very statement. “The tipping purpose that crystal rectifier to cypress India’s call to partner with them was the sector visit, wherever the farmers expressed however proud they were to be related to a platform they felt actually worked in their favor. This impact and deep whole loyalty stem from the leadership team’s razor-sharp focus, deep sympathy and fine execution”.