Agri Startup Arya has raised $21 Mn in a series B round, which was funded via equity as well as debt route. Quona Capital spearheaded the round while existing investors including LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore also invested in the round. Debt financing, on other hand, was backed by multiple independent investors.
This fresh investment is a top-up on the $6 Mn that Arya had raised in March this year. This particular round was labeled as a pre-series B round.
The Noida headquartered startup said that the fresh capital infusion will be used to dole out loans to farmers via Arya’s Fintech arm Aryadhan. Additionally, the funds will be used to ramp up post-harvest services.
Commenting on the funding, Arya’s CEO & co-founder Prasanna Rao said “of the food grains worth $130 Bn produced by India annually, there are huge losses in primary and secondary markets due to lack of storage, forcing farmers to sell off cycle for lower returns.”
“These same farmers are dependent on financing their cash flow needs but are vastly underserved, hurting their ability to store and sell their produce optimally. Arya’s digital solution pairs warehousing with financing and critical market linkage services to help small holders farmer thrive,” Rao added.
Mr. Sanjay Borkar, founder & CEO of Farm ERP, also agrees to the grave difficulty faced by Indian famers.
“Farmers in India face a majority of issues in two areas: productivity and market linkage. They do not have a knowledge of where to sell their products, and who would give them the right value for it,” Borkar said.
Arya essentially provides post-harvest services across the agricultural value chain. This includes services like warehousing, warehouse receipt financing, rural storage discovery so and so forth.
Over the last few years, funding in agriculture startups has picked up substantially. This signifies that investors are waking up to the latent potential in India’s farming industry.
As per the latest study by Accel India, funding in the farming sector has grown by 9.4X over the last four hours (see the below chart).
Top Agriculture Startups in India
- AgroStar
- Ninjacart
- Dehaat
- Clover
- Cropin
- Eruvaka
- Country Delight