Agtech DeHaat, that provides farmers with a variety of services, like input delivery and personalized farm guidance via its software system, has raised $30 million in Series C from venture capitalists led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures).
In an official statement, RTP Global co-invested in the current round with involvement from existing shareholders, Sequoia India, FMO, Omnivore and AgFunder, DeHaat reported.
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‘The funding from brand investors such as Prosus Ventures, RTP Global and others is a clear confirmation of our aim of being the biggest farmer aggregator in the world and will enable us scale up both in size and reach,’ stated DeHaat, co-founder and CEO, Shashank Kumar. The company aims to reinforce the technology platform and reach geographically to many other states of India with the Series C funding.
The agritech DeHaat, which was founded in 2012 and is based out of Gurgaon and Patna Bihar, also offers farmers access to banking and financial services and marketplace links to sell their goods. The platform combines a digital marketplace with a India’s rural network of last-mile service distribution centers and links different agricultural companies with farmers with the goal of aggregating one crore Indian farmers while supporting them to improve their profitability as well.
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Over the past couple of years, the company has witnessed about 3.5X growth rate and has built a rural retail network for last-mile distribution of more than 1,300 DeHaat micro-entrepreneurs, serving as many as 3.6 lakhs farmers based throughout Bihar, UP, Jharkhand & Odisha.
The company has developed numerous mobile and web applications with a robust 60 tech experts team, providing farmers with transparency about related farm inputs entities as well as bulk purchasers of farm produce.
“The growing Agritech firm will have a significant social impacts in India through its agricultural services offerings, increasing the potential earnings for Farmers in India and overall productivity for the industry while also allowing micro-entrepreneurs throughout the nation, as well as in rural areas in which there are often fewer income opportunities,” said Ashutosh Sharma, Head of India Investments, Prosus Ventures.
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DeHaat presently operates across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha, providing farmers with accessibility to almost 4,000 agriculture products, combined with AI-based personalized pest and disease management, crop advisory content for crop production delivered through mobile apps and call centers. The platform also aggregates farmers’ maize, wheat, rice, bajra, fruits, and vegetables into its network and directly delivers nearly 500 bulk commodity buyers, including retailers, e-commerce companies, FMCG firms, and food manufacturers to SMEs.
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