AgriTech Space to make country economically prosperous

India's economy is backed by the agriculture and our country is blessed with favourable agriculture condition. According to statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, India is the largest producer of milk, jute and pulses and the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, cotton, groundnuts and fruit and vegetables.

While agriculture came to India thousands of years ago and was flourishing, then Britishers had ruined everything along with agriculture, in modern times, it was the Green Revolution, led by agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan, that supercharged the country’s farm sector.

Today, with the emergence of the agritech space, India is standing on the cusp of a fourth revolution. Imperative to mention that the country’s agritech ecosystem is a juggernaut in the making. Having embraced IoT-enabled agricultural practices to now AI-enabled machines and tech, this burgeoning sector is writing the next chapter of the country’s farm story.

As tech penetration continues to rise through one of the world’s largest agricultural industries, Indian agritech startups are sitting on multi-billion-dollar opportunities.

And this potential is also being recognised by Indian and global investors, as these startups have secured more than $2.4 Bn since 2014, as per Inc42’s analysis.

Another agricultural revolution is at India’s doorstep, ready to disrupt the world’s food basket. There are some of the noteworthy agritech startups, showcasing the innovative strides they are making in transforming the agricultural landscape.

Agritech Startups In India

1. AgroStar

Founded by Shardul Sheth and Sitanshu Sheth in 2013, AgroStar offers an app and interactive voice response-based agriculture solutions to farmers.

The startup has built a multilingual content-led commerce platform for farmers, who can use its mobile application to read and watch agronomy content, post pictures of their crop problems to get advice, interact with fellow farmers and use voice search to look for agri products and transact on the platform.

It claims to be India’s largest digital farmer network and agri-inputs platform, serving over 5 Mn farmers across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Since its inception, the startup has raised more than $111 Mn from a host of investors, including Aavishkaar Bharat Fund, Accel India, and Bertelsmann, among others.

2. AGRIM 

Founded by Mukul Garg and Avi Jain in 2020, AGRIM is a B2B marketplace that helps farmers and agri-input retailers procure seeds and pesticides directly from manufacturers.

The startup claims to be an asset-light agri-inputs ecommerce platform for retailers. Its product catalogue spans four categories, including seeds, agrochemicals, nutrition and tools. Each category has subcategories such as herbicides, fungicides and pesticides for crop protection.

AGRIM raised $17.3 Mn in its Series B funding round led by investment advisor Asia Impact in August 2024.

AGRIM has raised more than $29.29 Mn in funding to date and counts the likes of Omnivore, India Quotient and Accion Venture Lab among others as its investors.

The startup competes with the likes of IDeHaat, AgroStar, BharatAgri, and CropIn.

3. Agrizy

Founded in 2021 by Vicky Dodani and Saket Chirania, Agrizy is a B2B agri-processing platform that connects processors with potential buyers dealing in non-perishable farm products across both food and non-food categories, such as oilseeds, cereals, pulses, jute, and others.

Besides, the startup offers a digital marketplace for agri-products, custom sourcing of agri-food products for buyers, demand aggregation for small processors and Working Capital support through partnerships with NBFCs.

It also offers networking, logistics, and warehousing services and automates payment cycles. The startup claims that its client list includes the likes of Reliance Retail, Patanjali, Adani Wilmar and Cremica.

The startup has raised over $18.78 Mn to date and counts the likes of Accion, Ankur Capital, Capria, and Omnivore as its investors.

4. Arya.ag

Founded in 2013 by Prasanna Rao, Anand Chandra, and Chattanathan Devarajan, Arya.ag is a grain commerce platform that offers storage as a service to farmers. It also helps them to choose when and to whom to sell their produce after harvest.

Arya.ag has three verticals – Arya Collateral, Aryadhan, and Aryatech. The Mumbai-based startup claims to work with about a million farmers and more than 5,000 aggregators on the supply side. On the demand side, it is connected with about 2,000 millers and major corporate firms on its platform.

The platform offers access to farmgate-level storage, financing, and transparent commerce, addressing trust issues in grain trading.

Arya.ag secured a $30 Mn debt funding from financial services major HSBC in January this year, to provide post-harvest liquidity to farmers, FPOs and small agri-enterprises.

In October 2024, it secured a commitment of $19.8 Mn from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to extend a debt facility for its agri commerce subsidiary Aryatech.

5. BigHaat

Founded by Raj Kancham, Sachin Nandwana and Sateesh Nukala in 2015, BigHaat is a farmer-centric digital marketplace, which offers technical guidance and accessibility to a wide range of high-quality inputs to farmers.

It is a full-stack data-based platform, which sources data through 7-8 channels to monitor consumer behaviour, sales patterns and cropping patterns. The data helps BigHaat analyse and predict how much produce will be generated by a particular farmer and how it will be affected by other external factors such as pests and weather patterns.

The startup, which counts JM Financial, Ankur Capital and BlackSoil as its investors, claims to have onboarded more than 4 Mn farmers. The startup has so far secured more than $23.78 Mn in total funding.

6. Bijak

The trading community part of the agriculture supply chain in India faces a lot of challenges from limited access to information to lack of accountability. To mitigate these issues, Nukul Upadhye, Mahesh Jakhotia, Jitender Bedwal, Daya Rai and Nikhil Tripathi founded Bijak in 2019.

The Delhi NCR-based startup is a B2B digital marketplace for agriculture businesses such as traders, wholesalers and food processors. It facilitates grain trading, connects seed manufacturers with farmers, and links fresh produce suppliers to major market hubs. The startup also caters to consumers through its fresh fruits and vegetables brand, ‘Just Fresh.’

7. BharatAgri

India’s agricultural revolution has employed more scientific methodologies to boost crop yields, yet smaller farmers often struggle to access agritech innovations.

To address this issue, Siddharth Dialani and Sai Gole launched the ecommerce platform BharatAgri in 2017. The startup provides AI-based agronomy services designed to help farmers achieve higher yields.

BharatAgri’s ecommerce portfolio includes over 1 Lakh agricultural products, such as fertilisers, seeds, pesticides, insecticides, and farming equipment. These products are delivered across more than 20,000 pin codes in India, aiding farmers in increasing their incomes through systematic scientific farming techniques.

The Pune-based startup raised $4.3 Mn back in 2023 and has raised a total of more than $14.49 Mn backed by the likes of Arkam Ventures, Capria Ventures, India Quotient, 021 Capital, and Omnivore.

8. CropIn

CropIn is a SaaS-based agritech platform, which helps farm-to-fork businesses digitise their operations and improve their decision-making process by providing real-time data and insights.

Founded by Krishna Kumar and Kunal Prasad in 2010, CropIn claims to have partnered with over 250 organisations across the globe, helped them digitise more than 16 Mn acres of farms and impacted the livelihood of nearly 7 Mn farmers, according to its website.

The startup helps farmers with advisories and suggests best practices for using water efficiently, including the kind of seeds that should be used.

Cropin also helps predict weather patterns and build early warning systems to warn farmers about factors such as fluctuations in the cost of fertilisers and complaints of infestations.

In 2018, the Karnataka government partnered with CropIn to start a programme to help farmers create more value for their crops and foster their socio-economic development.

CropIn partnered with Google Gemini in 2024 to roll out a real-time GenAI-powered agri intelligence platform to help customers manage farms globally by predicting yields, disease and other insights.

The Bengaluru-based startup saw its net loss trim 25.04% to INR 62.87 Cr in FY24 from INR 83.88 Cr in FY23.

9. DeHaat

Founded by Shashank Kumar, Adarsh Srivastava, Amrendra Singh and Shyam Sundar Singh in 2012, DeHaat offers end-to-end agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high-quality agri inputs, customised farm advisory, access to financial services and market linkages for selling their produce.

The startup claims that since inception, it has served over 2 Mn farmers across 11 states in India through its digital network of over 11,000 ‘DeHaat Centres’.

The startup boasts a network of over 1,500 stock-keeping units and delivers more than 15,000 orders per day to more than 15 countries. So far, DeHaat has secured more than $270 Mn in total funding from Peak XV Partners, Sofina Ventures and other investors.

Last year, the Patna-based startup launched its consumer brand

10. Eeki Foods 

Founded by IIT Bombay graduates Abhay Singh and Amit Kumar in 2018, Eeki Foods aims to make farming sustainable and climate-proof with the use of its growing chambers. These chambers provide plants with the ideal conditions to grow.

The startup makes use of its homegrown technology, which controls the farm’s climate, allowing vegetables to be grown all year without being affected by seasonal variations.

According to the startup, this technology helps in ensuring that the nutrient solutions deployed to the roots of the plants are continuously recirculated till all the water has been used up. Eeki claims that this allows crops to grow with 80% less water compared to traditional methods.

The agritech startup is backed by names such as Avaana Capital, Better Capital and Icebreaker VC.

The company secured $6.5 Mn in 2022, to scale across hundreds of acres, expand its team, and invest in technology. Eeki Foods has raised more than $8.50 Mn in funding to date.