Cropin Raises ₹ 113 Cr Funding from ABC Impact, Chiratae Ventures, Google, and JSR Corporation

New funding to accelerate efforts to bring intelligent agriculture to a third of the world's cultivable land by 2025 and increase adoption of Cropin Cloud, the world's first industry cloud for agriculture

Cropin, the global agritech pioneer that has built the world's first industry cloud for agriculture, has secured INR 113 crores in funding from new investors Google and JSR Corporation, as well as existing investors ABC Impact and Chiratae Ventures. The funds will aid in expanding Cropin Cloud, the company's recently launched intelligent agriculture cloud platform, to cater to the growing demand for digitization and predictive intelligence in the global agriculture sector.

Cropin Cloud, launched in September 2022, has quickly become a leading platform in the digital transformation of agriculture. With the support of this funding round, Cropin will be able to further invest in its go-to-market efforts and expand the platform's capabilities, including developing next-generation predictive intelligence solutionsq through Cropin AI Labs. The goal of Cropin AI Labs is to bring predictive intelligence to every acre of the world’s cultivable land. In addition, Cropin plans to expand its business presence in new regions and industries, focusing on creating solutions that promote sustainable agriculture practices and address global food security challenges on a large scale.

Today, the global food system faces significant challenges, including climate change, food insecurity, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical tensions, highlighting its structural vulnerabilities. Governments and businesses in the agriculture and food sectors are seeking ways to increase productivity, efficiency, and income to meet domestic demand and reduce food waste. Cropin, with its strategic technology solutions, is well-equipped to help governments, development agencies, and agri-food businesses transform and create a secure and sustainable food value chain.

Commenting on the investment, Krishna Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, Cropin said, "Since its founding in 2010, Cropin has been dedicated to improving the intelligence of food production and maximizing value for all stakeholders in the agricultural ecosystem. By making farms and harvests traceable, predictable, and sustainable, Cropin aims to transform how food is grown. The involvement of new strategic investors like Google and JSR Corporation, and the support of our existing investors, demonstrates confidence in our mission and impact. We are excited to partner with global technology innovators like Google, which further validates our capabilities and solidifies our position as a leader in the digitalization of global agriculture”.

Sugandhi Matta, Chief Impact Officer at ABC Impact, said, “We are pleased that Cropin’s efforts to address global food challenges through technology continue to gain traction. Our continued support alongside new investors underscores the commitment and dedication of the Cropin team in delivering impactful outcomes through their work.”

Commenting on the development, Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Chairman Chiratae Ventures India Advisors, said, “What we liked the most about Cropin is their quest for innovation, passion for solving critical global challenges and leveraging technology to transform the fundamental fabric of agriculture. I am a firm believer in technology start-ups defining new business and revenue models, innovating new products, pioneering cutting-edge technology developments, and discovering new markets for growth. Cropin has always embodied these values, and they are poised to be the largest Agritech company globally with its cloud-based, SaaS business model. This investment underlines our strong belief in their growth and the impact they deliver to co-create a truly sustainable global agri-food ecosystem.”

About Cropin

Cropin is a global agtech company that was founded in 2010. The company has developed Cropin Cloud, the world's first industry cloud for agriculture, which helps various stakeholders in the agricultural ecosystem make informed decisions that increase farming efficiency, improve productivity, manage risk and environmental changes, and enhance sustainability through the use of digital technologies and predictive intelligence. Cropin has partnered with more than 250 B2B customers and has digitized 16 million acres of farmland, benefiting over 7 million farmers. The company has shaped a global 'Ag-intelligence' movement, with a crop knowledge graph of over 500 crops and 10,000 crop varieties in 92 countries that powers Cropin Cloud. Cropin Cloud's intelligence platform has already provided predictive intelligence for over 200 million acres of farmland worldwide.

CropIn Launches AI Labs; To Bring Predictive Intelligence to Every Acre of the World's Cultivable Land

A team of Researchers and Scientists in AI/ML, Earth Observation, and Agrisciences will focus on computing global agriculture assets, with a target to build intelligence for 1/3rd of the planet's cultivable lands by 2025

• To strengthen the existing Earth Observation & AI science research team, Cropin will hire experts from these domains in 2022
• CropIn AI Labs to focus on bringing Earth Observation and AI-Science together to re-imagine agriculture and ensure sustainable usage of land and resources
• CropIn’s platform is capable of computing crop intelligence at planet scale, computing 0.2 billion acres of cultivable land so far in 13 countries including India, Nigeria, and Bangladesh covering 32 crops
• Based in India and Europe, the Cropin AI Labs team will compute over 1.2 billion acres of cultivable lands across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, LATAM, and Africa regions by 2025

Cropin, the agritech pioneer, building the first global Intelligent Agriculture Cloud, announced that it has set up a new AI Labs. With an initial team of 30 members comprising Earth Observation Scientists, Data Scientists, Agronomists and AI/ML Researchers, the AI Labs will focus on studying and "computing" cultivable lands worldwide. Leveraging the contextual convergence of earth-observation data, geo-fenced field data, AI models and knowledge built and tested over the years, Cropin's AI Labs scientists will bring intelligence to every acre of the world's farmlands.

The complex process of 'Agri asset computation' brings together hyper local historical and forecasted weather data, soil information, agro-climatic conditions, seed genetics, global crop sowing and harvesting patterns, management practices, agronomical knowledge, land records, farmer KYC and other farming insights, all under one umbrella. Cropin’s proprietary knowledge graphs are created on trillions of farm pixel datasets that continuously grow and multiply in time & space, allowing the company to build and implement the various AI models in any country in the shortest possible time. Cropin is doubling down efforts in solving some of the most complex challenges and opportunities in this industry with the launch of this initiative.

In a first of its kind initiative in the global agriculture ecosystem, this move will help accelerate digital adoption in the sector and transform agriculture into a sustainable, efficient, and data-driven industry:

• According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the global population will hit 10 billion people by 2050, and the world needs to produce 56 per cent more food than produced in 2010
• Cropin's global farmland computation initiative will have a deep impact on the $3 Trillion food production value chain by 2025
• Reduce food losses by 35% thus safeguarding food security and sustainability
• Enable $0.5 Trillion agri lending globally and significantly improve the livelihoods of 2 billion+ farmers

Commenting on the launch of Cropin AI Labs, Krishna Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, CropIn, said, "At Cropin, we are constantly focused on building technology that can enable and transform the agriculture sector. Right from our founding in 2010, when no category called agritech existed, to today, we see the industry evolving from the digitization of farming to intelligent and data-driven agriculture. Over the past few years, our Earth Observation & AI science research teams have built global intelligence models for agriculture that are already unmatched in terms of accuracy and scalability in the real world. Cropin's AI Labs will help us accelerate this effort to compute and bring the benefits of predictive intelligence to every acre of the world's farmlands."

The company's AI/ML-powered predictive risk monitoring and mitigation solutions have registered a revenue growth of more than 110X between 2019 and 2022 and now account for 65% of Cropin's revenues. Cropin’s Data and Insight Platforms provide businesses with actionable insights on crop identification and yield estimation; crop health monitoring, biotic and abiotic stress risk mapping, predicting harvest, irrigation & water usage management; and greenhouse gas emission monitoring and climate-smart agriculture advisories.

Praveen Pankajakshan - VP, Data Science & AI, CropIn, said, "The history of agriculture is replete with examples of continuous innovation and transformation. Technology adoption in the agriculture sector has been abysmally low in comparison with other industry segments. The primary reason being that these solutions were built elsewhere and retrofitted for agriculture use cases. Cropin’s AI Labs is on a mission to solve the most complex and challenging research problems in Agriculture by custom-building these solutions as an intelligence stack for all the world’s farmlands and help accelerate this transformation. These are foundational blocks that play a critical role in future-proofing agriculture and influence the future of food security. We are excited and determined to fuel the next wave of agriculture transformation for our planet. Cropin is revolutionizing the ‘AICulture for Agriculture’ and what is good for the planet is great for us!"

About Cropin

Founded in 2010, Cropin is a pioneer in the Agtech space, building the first global Intelligent Agriculture Cloud. Cropin's platform enables various stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem to leverage digitization and AI at scale to make decisions that increase efficiency, scale productivity, and strengthen sustainability. Cropin has worked with 250+ customers and has digitized 16 million acres of farmland, improving the livelihoods of more than 7 million farmers. It has built the world's largest and most diverse farming data insights over a decade, spearheading a global 'Ag-intelligence' movement with a knowledge of 488 crops, and 10000 crop varieties in 56 countries. With its AI/ML platform tailor-made for the agriculture ecosystem, Cropin has computed 0.2 billion acres of farmlands across the globe.

CropIn Announces Three New Executive Leadership Appointments

To lead its new phase of growth and global expansion with a mission of accelerating progress in agri-ecosystem everyday

• Industry veteran Mohit Pande joins as Chief Business Officer to spearhead business expansion across international markets
• Vijay Nelson takes charge as Chief Product Officer to accelerate product innovation and strengthen Cropin’s agri-ecosystem Deep Tech offerings for global markets
• Sujit Janardanan has been named Chief Marketing Officer with a mission to spur market penetration across growth regions

Cropin, a leading global ag-ecosystem intelligence provider, today announced the appointment of three executive leaders in a move to strengthen its leadership team and support the company’s continued growth and execution of its strategic priorities. Mohit Pande joins Cropin as Chief Business Officer, Vijay Nelson as Chief Product Officer, and Sujit Janardanan as Chief Marketing Officer.

After building a successful business model and spearheading an all new ‘Ag-intelligence’ movement for ecosystem players worldwide for over a decade, Cropin is accelerating its journey of building a deep tech organization that is focused on solving some of the toughest challenges and biggest opportunities faced by the agri-ecosystem. The restructuring exercise encompasses redefining the organizational culture, strengthening values, and introducing a host of people-friendly initiatives as the company is expanding its operations across global markets.

Mohit Pande has been named Chief Business Officer. Mohit will be responsible for accelerating Cropin's business operations across global markets. With a customer base spanning 56 countries, Cropin is on an aggressive path to expand its international presence and set-up offices in priority markets across North America, LATAM, Europe, South-East Asia, and the Africa region - apart from India. With 25 years of experience in driving business operations for technology giants such as Google and Microsoft, Mohit was most recently Co-Founder of Linear Squared (now acquired by Algonomy) and previously Country Manager, India for Google Cloud. He will work with Cropin CEO Krishna Kumar and COO Kunal Prasad to spearhead the company’s aggressive business growth globally.

Vijay Nelson has been appointed Chief Product Officer. Vijay will lead product development and platform innovations at Cropin. He will focus on streamlining existing product offerings and build the next generation of Ag-intelligence solutions, tailored for different customer segments. He will also help the company to strengthen its Deep Tech product suite and accelerate the convergence of AI, ML, data science, satellite imagery, and remote sensing to reimagine a truly futuristic tech-enabled agri ecosystem worldwide. Vijay has nearly 20 years of experience as a product leader in leading technology organizations such as Microsoft, Amazon, eMids and Honeywell. His most recent role was at Microsoft where he was the Principal Group Product Manager, heading the Microsoft Outlook products in India.

Sujit Janardanan has been named Chief Marketing Officer. Sujit will focus on enhancing Cropin's brand positioning as the most admired Deep Tech company in the agtech space and spearhead market penetration across growth regions. He will also focus on rebuilding and growing the company’s marketing organization. Sujit has over 2 decades of experience in driving global and regional marketing at technology leaders such as Google, AWS, NTT (Netmagic) and McAfee among many others. Prior to joining Cropin, he was Head of Marketing, India for Google Cloud.

Commenting on the appointments, Krishna Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, Cropin said “I am delighted to welcome Mohit, Vijay and Sujit to the Cropin leadership team. Cropin is gearing up for the next phase of growth and international expansion as we seek to transform the agri ecosystem worldwide. We take great pride in the creation of a global Agtech category while building Cropin since 2010. There has been significant traction for our solutions in the past few years. We strongly believe that this is the right time for us to embark on a new journey to scale our ‘built in India’ Intelligent Ag Cloud platform across global markets. The new appointments will be invaluable additions to our senior management team on this exciting journey.”

About Cropin

Founded in 2010, Cropin is a pioneer in the Agtech space building the first global Intelligent Ag Cloud. Cropin's platform enables various stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem to leverage digitization and AI at scale to make decisions that increase efficiency, scale productivity, and strengthen sustainability. Cropin has worked with 250+ customers and has digitized 16 million acres of farmland, improving the livelihoods of more than 7 million farmers. It has built the world's largest farming data insights over a decade, spearheading a global ‘Ag-intelligence’ movement with a knowledge graph of 488 crops, 10000 crop varieties in 56 countries. With its AI/ML platform tailor-made for the agriculture ecosystem, Cropin has computed 0.2 billion acres of farmland in 12 countries, covering 24 major commodities.

CropIn Selected to Improve Climate Adaptation and Resilience for 200,000 Farmers With Support From IFAD; Wins the Global Environment Facility's Climate Adaptation Innovation

CropIn is one of the ten global winners of the GEF Challenge Program for Adaptation Innovation from the 418 submissions

IFAD is the GEF partner agency for the project

CropIn's SmartFarm solution will provide end-to-end digitization and climate adaptation platform to enable smallholder farmers in the three Least Developed Countries in Africa

As part of their continued focus to enable sustainable agriculture by leveraging technology, CropIn, the Bengaluru-based Ag-Tech major, has won the Global Environment Facility's (GEF) Climate Adaptation Innovation Challenge at COP26 UNFCCC, Glasgow, to provide digital farming intelligence solutions and increase resilience and climate adaptation of 200,000 smallholder farmers in three least developed countries in Africa over two years. The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) has joined as a GEF partner agency for the project. This initiative will leverage CropIn's existing footprint across 18 countries in Africa.

Climate change mitigation needs technology-enabled solutions to reach smallholder farmers without requiring them to make massive investments in infrastructure. Through this partnership, CropIn will be implementing its global Climate-Smart Advisory Platform, SmartFarm. The platform leverages AI models built on extensive agriculture knowledge graphs derived from CropIn's trillions of farm pixel data. This solution, combined with the human efforts of 2,000 agri-entrepreneurs trained in digital technologies, will provide actionable insights and advisories using AI & ML to enable smallholder farmers across six agri-value chains - cotton, cocoa, cashew, cassava, maize, and rice.

The project includes end-to-end digitization and streamlining the farm management process for smallholder farmers, and creating a support system that provides early warnings for pest and disease outbreaks, besides advisories on climate, soil, and water management at a plot level. It will build the institutional capacity of identified lead farmers' organizations, rural institutions, and governments for long-term asset creation and sustainability. The project aims to mitigate risks for all the agri-value chain players and improve price stability based on trust and confidence created by data and evidence.

Speaking about the partnership, Kunal Prasad, Co-founder, and COO, CropIn, said, "We are excited about this opportunity as it allows us to strengthen the farming community and make them more resilient to climate change by leveraging our solution. SmartFarm also enables farm-related businesses to respond more organically to environmental challenges and adjust their systems and processes accordingly. The platform ensures reduction in risks for all actors in the agri-value chain and increasing long term sustainability while promoting intra-engagement of actors for credit facilitation and market linkage based on trust and data."

About CropIn

CropIn is a global ag-ecosystem intelligence provider. CropIn's suite of products enables various stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem, including financial services providers, to adopt and drive digital strategy across their agricultural operations. CropIn helps organizations digitize their operations from farm to fork and leverage near real-time farm data and actionable insights to make effective decisions.

With the vision to 'maximize per acre value,' CropIn adds value to agri-businesses by increasing efficiency, scaling productivity, and strengthening sustainability across the board.

Using cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and remote sensing, CropIn creates an intelligent, interconnected data platform. Organizations like banks, insurance companies, government, development agencies, farming companies, agri-input companies, farm equipment companies, food processors, and retailers use CropIn's solutions to derive real-time actionable insights and help build a sustainable agri-ecosystem.

CropIn has partnered with over 250+ organizations globally to digitize over 16 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 7 million farmers while building intelligence for over 400 crops and over 10,000 crop varieties in over 56 countries. The solutions offered by CropIn are crop and geo-location agnostic and are available in a plug-and-play model.

AgriTech Startup CropIn Ties with Mucheki Consulting To Create Digital Ecosystem For Agriculture In African Continent

CropIn, a leading AI & data-led organization in line with its vision to help solve the food security issue in the world, has partnered with Mucheki Consulting to bring digitization in the African agricultural ecosystem. This alliance is expected to strengthen CropIn’s presence in Africa and enable the creation of a digital ecosystem in the country. 

Through this partnership, agri stakeholders will get valuable real-time insights ensuring better decision making that will bring about consistency, dependability, sustainability, better crop yield, and increasing the financial stability of the farmers.

Mucheki Consulting caters to the entire continent of Africa with a presence in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. It offers specialized ERP solutions and services to progressive businesses across the African continent.

With this initiative, CropIn aims to complement the ERP solutions that Mucheki Consulting provides to their customers. This will give a comprehensive end-to-end package. CropIn’s digital solutions will also help provide key data and insights about the soil, climate, pests, and other details to governments to help them address the food security problems in Africa and restore balance. Customers are expected to benefit from better business intelligence, improved business operations, optimized costs, enhanced quality levels, superior collaboration, and business growth.

Speaking about the partnership, Mr. Jitesh Shah, CRO, CropIn, said, “We are delighted to ally with Mucheki Consulting, which allows us to bring a positive change in the lives of farmers and food providers in Africa. Our continuous endeavor has been to provide unique technology-based solutions to the agriculture value chain. Through this partnership, new vistas can open up in Africa for a sustainable agricultural ecosystem.”

“The situation over the last eighteen months has accelerated innovative efforts to design and employ the power of digital technology to provide innovative solutions to existing problems in agriculture. Emerging evidence from Africa indicates that new-age technology can improve the productivity and income of marginal farmers by improving their efficiency, increasing traceability, and improving access to inputs and financial markets. Agricultural data collection, use, and analysis have enormous potential to disrupt existing agricultural business models. New strategic alliances between the private and government sectors can help reap the positive benefits of digital technology.”, he further added.

Speaking about the partnership, Mr. Churchward Mucheki Group, CEO, Mucheki Consulting said, “Agriculture is at the heart of the African people. With an estimation of over 60 million farms, modern-day farming has become an intensely scientific practice. The increasing population, ever-changing demographic landscapes, Global warming, and diverse urban dietary requirements all call for a technologically enhanced value chain. Mucheki has the vision to play an instrumental role in Africa's agricultural sector, and we believe CropInhas a host of digital solutions to complement our initiative. . Plagued by a low per capita income, Food security remains a battle to be won in Africa. We believe that the technological support/ tech-solutions that CropIn offers will assist in this initiative by streamlining Agri-production processes which will result in overall affordability of quality produce even for low-income earners. We are elated about this strategic partnership and are confident of the positive influence this relationship will bring to our African Agriculture.”

The partnership aims to strengthen farmers of Africa by digitizing farms and offering smart data on weather, disease prediction, crop health, yield estimation, soil quality, and risk of pestilence in real-time.

CropIn Raises $20 Mn in Funding Led by Temasek backed ABC World Asia

Krishna

CropIn, a leading global artificial intelligence and data-led agri-tech organization empowering stakeholders to reimagine agriculture with data, has raised US$20 million in a Series C funding round led by ABC World Asia, an Asia-focused private equity fund dedicated to evidence-based impact investing.

Existing investors Chiratae Ventures, Invested Development and Ankur Capital also participated in this funding round. Other new investors in this round include CDC Group and Kris Gopalakrishnan’s family office Pratithi Investment Trust.

CropIn will use this capital infusion to focus on its global expansion, while continuing to innovate on its machine learning-based predictive analytics platform, SmartRisk to further strengthen its artificial intelligence capabilities. CropIn is also investing to penetrate deeper in its target markets globally. Recently, CropIn opened an Amsterdam office, and will be hiring local leaders to drive growth in the European market.

CropIn’s data-driven farming solutions enable agri-enterprises and growers to ‘maximize per-acre value’. Its farm data and agronomy management platform, SmartFarm, empowers stakeholders to improve efficiency, productivity, predictability, and sustainability of their crop value-chains. SmartFarm enables agri-enterprises to adhere to food safety standards thereby ensuring farm-to-fork traceability. The platform helps growers adopt sustainable farming practices to build long term economic viability and resiliency for local farming communities. CropIn has partnered with several global players in agriculture, including development finance institutions and government entities in 52 countries, to drive their digital and sustainability goals.

CropIn’s SmartRisk platform improves underwriting and risk assessment, enabling banks, insurance providers and other financial institutions to make informed underwriting decisions, identify new markets and expand product portfolios to service high-volume low-ticket opportunities. By analyzing and interpreting farm-centric data for over 388 crops with nearly 9,500 variants across trillions of data points that grow every day, SmartRisk helps achieve high prediction accuracy at a plot-level. It does this by combining computer vision with deep-learning algorithms, on multispectral imagery derived from aerial scouting (satellites and drones), field scouting data, and hyperlocal weather.

The SmartRisk AI has processed more than 160 million hectares of land area, and has the potential to impact 70 million farmers globally in the next 3-5 years. Thus far, CropIn has positively impacted 13 million acres and 4 million farmers through the SmartFarm and SmartRisk platforms. Smallholder farmers associated with CropIn’s clientele also observed their crop yields increasing by nearly 25% in the first year and subsequently experienced optimised yield improvements in the following years, by integrating the recommended advanced agricultural techniques and quality inputs into their farming practices through CropIn’s agri-tech platforms.

“The robust, predictive power of digitalisation offers tremendous potential for the agriculture industry to leapfrog its many challenges in the coming years. The industry is capturing more data than ever, on everything from agronomy, weather and logistics to market price volatility, which has helped reduce acute data gaps throughout the value chain. In order to improve yields, optimise production and improve resilience and sustainability, agri-businesses are increasingly relying on innovative agri-tech solutions like artificial intelligence, data analytics, and the internet of things. We, at CropIn, are excited to advance the ‘AI-Culture’ for Agriculture,” says Krishna Kumar, Founder and CEO of CropIn.

Based in Singapore, ABC World Asia invests in companies that demonstrate commitment to generating positive and measurable social or environmental impact, alongside the ability to deliver compelling risk-adjusted returns.

“Sustainable food and agriculture is a core investment theme for ABC World Asia. The agriculture industry is an important pillar of the global economy, in particular driving Asia’s growth and feeding the region’s rapidly increasing population. The industry now faces challenges more pronounced than before, with the COVID-19 global pandemic highlighting the vulnerability of global food supplies and impacting the livelihoods of many smallholder farmers. CropIn’s digital solutions will enable farmers to utilize real-time data for better decision-making and improved farm productivity. This investment underscores our support of such smart and sustainable agri-tech solutions that can build resilience in agriculture,” said David Heng, Founder and CEO of ABC World Asia. Ms Sugandhi Matta, Managing Director of ABC World Asia, will also join CropIn as a board member.

Existing investors of CropIn include BeeNext and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Strategic Investment Fund (London and Seattle). Over the last year, CropIn has established an advisory board comprising Barrett Mooney (Chairman of Board at AgEagle), Ranveer Chandra (Chief Scientist at Microsoft), TVG Krishnamurthy (Member of the Board of Directors at Ola), and Dr Iya Khalil (Global Head of the AI Innovation Center at Novartis).

According to Karan Mohla, Partner, Chiratae Ventures India Advisors, “As active investors in the agri-tech space as well as in companies pioneering deep-tech and AI, we are truly excited about the innovative models that CropIn is building out in farm management and predictive analytics. In creating and building out a platform for multiple participants in the agriculture ecosystem, CropIn has established itself as a true global leader. With the leadership of Krishna and co-founder Kunal Prasad, they have built out a tremendous world-class team and advisory board and are on the precipice of achieving massive scale as a global company.”

Ambit Corporate Finance acted as the financial advisor to CropIn for this funding round. With this new round of investment, CropIn has raised a total funding of US$33.1 million to date.

About CropIn

CropIn is a leading global AI-driven agtech​ organization that provides SaaS and data solutions to ag-enterprises globally. CropIn enables businesses in the agriculture ecosystem to adopt a data-driven approach through its ground-to-cloud technology solutions. 

CropIn’s unique suite of platforms - SmartFarm and SmartRisk - enable various stakeholders to adopt and drive digital strategy across their crop value-chains and operations. The company empowers the ag-enterprises with data insights that help drive initiatives around Digitization, Predictability, Traceability, Financial Inclusion, Climate Smart Agriculture and Sustainability.

Please visit www.cropin.com for more information.

About ABC World Asia

Headquartered in Singapore, ABC World Asia is a private equity fund dedicated to impact investing. Impact investing encompasses the intention to generate positive, measurable social or environmental impact, alongside a compelling risk-adjusted return.

ABC World Asia was established by Temasek Trust, the philanthropic arm of Singapore headquartered investment company, Temasek. The fund’s investment strategy aligns with Temasek’s ABC Framework for an Active Economy, a Beautiful Society and a Clean Earth, building on the ideals of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

ABC World Asia will focus on themes including – financial and digital inclusion; better health and education; climate and water solutions; sustainable food and agriculture; and smart and liveable cities.
For more information, please visit www.abcworld.com.sg

Tata Trust’s CInI Scales Up Partnership With CropIn To Impact 40,000 Tribal Households in Jharkhand

The Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI), an Initiative of Tata Trusts, has scaled up its programme on Lakhpati Kisan with technology integration in partnership with agri-tech pioneer CropIn to improve the livelihoods of 40,000+ tribal households across its focused states in Central Indian Tribal Belt. The partnership was announced at an event conducted by CInI in Ranchi. This partnership comes as part of CInI’s ‘Mission 2020: Lakhpati Kisan – Smart Villages’ program, which aims to bring over 1 lakh households out of poverty by improving their livelihood and overall quality of life  in an irreversible and sustainable manner.

Nearly 85% of India’s agricultural sector comprises of small and marginal farmers, most of whom face challenges such as high production costs, low access to credit, and poor market linkages. Community Institutions such as Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are a great way for these farmers to come together to overcome these issues and have economies of scale. FPOs provide a great opportunity for diverting a part of development funds into implementing technology projects for small and marginal farmers to meet their aspirations in the agriculture sector. 

The partnership with CInI is being implemented through community institutions that are led entirely by women farmers. These tribal women farmers are responsible for timely and effective monitoring of the farmlands along with providing regular guidance to the farmers. The program not only looks at poverty alleviation but also focuses strongly on women empowerment. 

The CInI’s program has witnessed great success since its launch in 2015 and has impacted the lives of over 100,000 households, bringing them in the ambit of institutional structures for driving change. They now want to strengthen their impact and efficacy by leveraging the advanced technologies in the field of agriculture to address the specific constraints faced by the tribal population in the region. CInI also believes in the merits of livestock development for which they are looking to initiate better animal husbandry practices. For taking the program to the next level with the help of a cutting-edge technology solution, CropIn will play an important role in achieving CInI’s vision of changing human lives for the better. 

The partnership announcement event held in Ranchi witnessed a community interaction that focused on the "Role of technology in enhancing smallholder farmers’ income”.

The gathering was attended by invitees from various like-minded organizations. Speaking on the occasion, Ganesh Neelam, Executive Director of CInI said, “Achieving aspirations of tribal communities through the focused Lakhpati Kisan programme has been the focus at CInI. For us, innovative technologies and approaches are core for achieving the outcomes of these communities. The partnership with a well-known technology partner such as CropIn is very unique and important for us to meet the audacious goals of our programme. We proactively look for this partnership to be taken at scale for larger benefits of small and marginal farmers.

The first phase of this partnership started in 2018, during which CInI leveraged CropIn’s SmartFarm to improve the livelihood of 4,300+ farmers across the Gorabanda and Dhalbhumgarh regions in Jharkhand. Looking at the outcomes and impact generated by this pilot, CropIn and CInI have decided to set a bigger goal of scaling up to reach more than 40,000 households. 

SmartFarm uses cutting-edge technologies like real-time satellite-based plot monitoring to intervene at every stage of the crop lifecycle. The solution helps build accurate farmer and produce profiles through proper channelization and digitization of data. It also actively engages farmers by sending them farm best practices advisories — not only for agriculture but also for livestock like pigs and goats. SmartFarm also helps monitor the field team that consists exclusively of women tribal farmers. The field staff engage with the farmers on a day-to-day basis and gather critical farm data using SmartFarm’s easy-to-use modules. SmartFarm helps conduct yield analysis, allowing CInI to measure the impact of the interventions and improve outcomes going forward.

"Through our partnership with CInI, we aim to promote technology in the larger space especially in the tribal areas. Additionally, we are also providing our solution for the livestock sector. The uniqueness of this program is that it is managed by women-led FPOs thereby emphasizing our focus on women empowerment. We are incredibly excited about this partnership and look forward to creating a positive impact in the lives of farmers." Jitesh Shah, CRO of CropIn Technology added.

About Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI)

Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI) is a nodal agency of the Tata Trusts, working on transforming the lives of tribal households in the Central India tribal belt. The organization works with various civil society organizations, agriculture and other knowledge institutions, state agencies to establish sustainable development models for tribal communities. 

In 2015, CInI launched a highly ambitious “Lakhpati Kisan – Smart Villages” program to work with over 100,000 families and make them lakhpati irreversibly and sustainably through agriculture and allied livelihood prototypes embedded with technology innovations led by community institutions and micro enterprises.

About CropIn

CropIn is a leading AI and Data-led agri-tech​ organization that provides SaaS solutions to agribusinesses globally. CropIn’s unique suite of products enables various stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem to adopt and drive digital strategy across their operations. 

Using cutting-edge technology like big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and remote sensing, CropIn creates an interconnected network of all these stakeholders at different levels of the agriculture ecosystem, enabling clients to analyze and interpret data to derive real-time actionable insights on standing crop. Businesses can thus leverage technology to effectively drive their initiatives around Digitization, Predictability, Compliance, Sustainability and Traceability. 

With the vision to ‘maximize per acre value’ and the mission to ‘make every farm traceable’, CropIn adds value to agri-businesses by increasing efficiency, scaling productivity, and strengthening sustainability across the board. Thus far, CropIn has digitized over 5.5 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 2.1 million farmers, while gathering data on 380+ crops and 3,600+ crop varieties in 46+ countries across 6 continents.

CropIn hosts AgriInnovation Summit 2019 for Agritech led Fintech & Insurtech for the Next Billion

CropIn, a leading Artificial Intelligence and data-led agri-tech​ organization that provides SaaS solutions to agribusinesses globally, today hosted ‘The Agri-Innovation Summit’ 2019 in Mumbai. The event witnessed the presence of Shri. Ashish Kumar Bhutani, Chief Executive Officer, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, and  Mr.Arindom Datta, Executive Director of Rural & Development Banking, Rabobank along with Mr.Krishna Kumar, CEO of CropIn.

CropIn being the leading AI and data-led agri-tech​ organization, enables the clients to analyze and interpret data to derive real-time actionable insights on standing crops and projects spanning geographies, thereby enabling the business to utilize technology to effectively drive their initiatives around digitization, predictability, compliance, sustainability, and traceability.

CropIn has digitized over 5.5 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 2.1 million farmers, while gathering data on over 300+ crops and 3,500+ crop varieties in over 46+ countries. The SaaS solutions offered by CropIn are crop and location agnostic, and are available on the web and mobile devices.

“The government of India has taken the initiative to migrate totally to technology based yield assessment. Climate change is already a reality and it has to be addressed in terms of agriculture. We have to find a robust technology to solve this and there is a need to address these issues through technology as farmers are coming out of agriculture. There is a need for us to rise and find abetter solutions to solve the agricultural issues,” said Ashish Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. 

“Agri-Technology has served as an enabler for improvement in agribusinesses and helped the entire ecosystem with traceability and predictability. The biggest challenge is to understand the amount of harvest is going to come up. Climatic change has been a big concern for us. If we look globally, the number of young farmers have reduced in last one decade. Agriculture consumes around 75% of the freshwater. We are not able to fund more than 50% of Ag-credit needs. The rise in temperature is bringing down the food production globally and we need trillions of investment to fix the problem of the irrigation. It has to be an ecosystem approach and data driven platform that can bring down the challenges seen in agricultural ecosystem,”  said Mr. Kumar, CEO of CropIn.

CropIn has introduced cutting-edge technologies like - Big-data analytics, artificial intelligence, and remote sensing to provide different insights across the value chain and help the management to make smarter decisions. The vision is to maximize per acre value and make every farm traceable. CropIn aims to add value by increasing efficiency, scaling productivity and strengthening sustainability across the board.

At the turn of the century, agriculture has become an industry with maximum potential and impact that would be a gateway of opportunities for inclusion of various stakeholders within and around the ecosystem, wherein agriculture has become the guiding pillar for economic transformation in the country, representing a space where innovation can serve the marginalized in diverse ways. A widely evolving technological landscape is an outset of new possibilities to target and price credit, to share the risk, and to harness information technology to expand agricultural productivity, which generates both welfare and regional economic integration as it contributes to over 15% of the overall economy (GDP), which determines the standard of living for more than 60% of the population. At the same time, many obstacles are not IT-enabled, so it is important to look for strategic places where policy and investment can help to improve outcomes for agricultural households.

This sector with the aid of digital inclusion has transformed the entire value chain of agribusinesses. The rapid advancements in AI/ML are facilitating intelligent food production and the development of new business models. As a result, the agri ecosystem will be more productive, efficient, sustainable, inclusive, transparent, and resilient. The use of new technology is necessary to move India’s agriculture to a more productive path.

CropIn is a leading full-stack agri-tech​ organization that provides SaaS solutions to agribusinesses globally. CropIn’s unique suite of products enables various stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem, including the farmer, to adopt and drive digital strategy across their operations.

Using cutting-edge technology like big-data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and remote sensing, CropIn creates an interconnected network of all these stakeholders at different levels of the agriculture ecosystem, enabling clients to analyze and interpret data to derive real-time actionable insights on standing crop. Businesses can thus leverage technology to effectively drive their initiatives around Digitization, Compliance, Sustainability and Traceability.

With the vision to ‘maximize per acre value’ and the mission to ‘make every farm traceable’, CropIn adds value to agri-businesses by increasing efficiency, scaling productivity, and strengthening sustainability across the board. Thus far, CropIn has digitized over 5.5 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 2.1 million farmers, while gathering data on 384 crops and 3,662 crop varieties in over 46+ countries. The SaaS solutions offered by CropIn are crop and location agnostic, and are available on the Web and mobile devices.

Punjab Govt Partners with AI-powered AgriTech Firm CropIn for Seed Potato Traceability

From next year, potato growers globally will be able to differentiate the certified, high-quality seeds produced by Punjab from other growers. Bengaluru-based agritech pioneer CropIn has partnered with The Punjab Agri Export Corporation (PAGREXCO), a Government of Punjab enterprise, to leverage CropIn’s AI-powered technology to improve the quality of potato seed production in the state and incorporate first-of-its-kind ‘Seed Potato Traceability’ in the entire value chain.

By leveraging QR-code tagging during the packaging and warehousing process, CropIn will ensure that potato farmers are able to trace the origin of the seeds that they are buying.

They will know exactly where the seeds are coming from, and whether they are PAGREXCO certified. Given the sub-par, spurious seeds that are flooding the market and resulting in low yields and poor ROI, this certification can transform potato seed production. It will also play a big role in building trust and credibility for PAGREXCO’s seeds among potato growers.

Along with bringing traceability to the life cycle of seeds, CropIn also uses its cutting edge agritech solutions to improve the seed production process and help potato seed farmers produce superior quality seeds. CropIn’s value proposition for the seed value chain starts right from the R&D stage. During the R&D process, on-farm trials for new seed varieties are conducted across multiple plots, each with a different seed variety. A number of parameters have to be carefully monitored to decide which seed varieties meet the quality benchmark. The Seed R&D division requires actionable, real-time insights that help make data-driven decisions to ensure that only the best seed varieties move forward in the production chain.

Once the certified seeds from Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI) and aeroponic labs are received, PAGREXCO takes up a massive seed multiplication process in which the seed varieties are packaged into millions of seed packets. At the seed multiplication stage, CropIn will use a combination of three digital solutions — SmartFarm, SmartRisk & AcreSquare— to monitor the entire process, right from planning to production. The PAGREXCO field teams will configure a package of best practices on the CropIn platform, specific to the seed variety being produced. They will also get real-time intelligence about weather forecast, crop growth, crop health, potential pest infestations and crop diseases. This will help potato seed growers in Punjab to produce superior quality seeds and improve their efficiency. Finally, CropIn will also facilitate two-way communication between PAGREXCO and the seed farmers, allowing managers to share important plans, advisories, and instruction videos; and for farmers to have instant access to the PAGREXCO team.

CropIn will be working with PAGREXCO to ensure that these transformational measures get implemented from the next potato season. Commenting on the partnership, co-founder & COO of CropIn, Kunal Prasad said, “Punjab produces 27 lakh metric tonnes of potatoes every year, which means that ensuring high seed quality is absolutely critical. In fact, Punjab also caters to 60-70% of the entire seed potato demand in the Indian market. Hence, this partnership will not only impact the potato seed farmers in Punjab, but also potato growers across India and in the international markets. We are excited about partnering with PAGREXCO and being able to improve outcomes at such a large scale.”

CropIn currently works with multi-billion-dollar seed companies to build massive efficiencies in the seed value chain. These global seed companies are leveraging CropIn’s platform in more than 25 countries. This partnership with PAGREXCO is a big step towards digitisation and traceability in the Indian seed value chain. Today, agricultural institutions across the country are driving the transformative impact of building technological efficiencies into a long and arduous agricultural life cycle. Hopefully, more Government organisations across the different states will now take up the cause of technology-driven transformation in seed production.

What CropIn Does -

CropIn is a leading full-stack agri-tech organization that provides SaaS solutions to agribusinesses globally. CropIn’s unique suite of products enable various stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem, including the farmer, to adopt and drive digital strategy across their operations.

Using cutting-edge technology like big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and remote sensing, CropIn creates an interconnected network of all these stakeholders at different levels of the agriculture ecosystem, enabling clients to analyze and interpret data to derive real-time actionable insights on standing crop. Businesses can thus leverage technology to effectively drive their initiatives around Digitization, Compliance, Sustainability and Traceability.

With the vision to ‘maximize per acre value’ and the mission to ‘make every farm traceable’, CropIn adds value to agri-businesses by increasing efficiency, scaling productivity, and strengthening sustainability across the board. Thus far, CropIn has digitized over 5 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 2.1 million farmers, while gathering data on 265 crops and 3,500 crop varieties in over 30+ countries. The SaaS solutions offered by CropIn are crop and location agnostic, and are available on the Web and mobile devices.

Agritech Startup CropIn partners with the Central Govt for Accurate Crop Cutting Experiments (CCE)

The Central government has partnered with SaaS-based agri-tech startup CropIn, along with nine other research institutions and private agencies, to make the Crop Cutting Experiments (CCE) more accurate, swift and scalable. The CCE optimization initiative using cutting edge technologies was carried out by the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), Centre's flagship crop insurance programme, and monitored by Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC).

The Crop Cutting Experiment (CCE) is a process used to analyse the over all yield of the village in order to obtain fair, precise and accurate estimate of yield of principal crops.

The objectives of these pilot studies were two-fold: (1) Optimisation of number of crop cutting experiments to bring it to more manageable levels, (2) A robust and self managed claim dispute resolution mechanism which enables swift resolution of claim disputes. The pilot studies, were initiated in September 2018, and concluded with the CCE of Rabi crops in Feb 2019.

The PMFBY requires the states to carry out minimum four crop-wise CCE in every gram panchayat for the submission of the yield data to insurance companies within 30 days of harvest. The government has traditionally been using a random survey method to estimate the crop yields of a given location. However, considering that there are 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in India, it is challenging to conduct reliable and accurate CCE in the country at scale within a short harvesting window. Applying technology to the otherwise rudimentary and time-consuming process of CCE will expedite risk assessment when processing insurance claims and loan applications made by farmers under the PMFBY.

CropIn is currently conducting CCE through its scalable yield mapping technology through remote sensing in the Koppal and Bellary districts of Karnataka. CropIn's SmartFarm and SmartRisk collectively enables accurate and efficient execution of CCE, resulting in timely clearance of claims. Given that India is a country of small-hold/marginal farmers, CropIn's technology can also be used to evaluate varied/smaller unit areas, thereby rationalizing the entire process of CCE.

For conducting CCE experiments that are a lot more scientific and less arbitrary, SmartRisk™, an award winning AI- and ML- powered digital platform by CropIn, makes use of ground-level data and satellite imagery to identify the plots that are apt for these experiments. Millions of data points are analysed and run through proprietary AI & ML models to zero in on farm plots that will represent the most accurate sample for the region. With the help of this data, government officials can easily identify the right plots that should be included in the study, removing all ambiguity from the process of selection. The benefits of technologically-aided CCE are not just limited to choosing the right sample for study. Apart from offering a more optimized method of plot selection, this platform also helps in providing the government and insurance companies with scientific, scalable, and accurate reports for processing of insurance claims and crop yield assessments.

SmartFarm—CropIn’s digital farm management solution—captures the precise location and size of the farm and the details of the farmer at the time of conducting the CCE. This ensures the field data is accurate, enabling complete visibility and transparency in the CCE process.

CropIn improves the operational efficiency of CCE at scale by providing centralized access to regional/unit area data points to government and insurance companies. The company applies complex algorithms for the smart-sampling of crops. CropIn's Smartfarm gives complete control of the process to all stakeholders. Right from identifying the crop being grown in a unit area, harvest readiness of the crops to determining the optimal crop yield points, stakeholders can leverage the data points to carry out CCE effectively. The CCE process is executed by field agents and the data is updated to SmartFarm for the perusal of government. Based on the crop insurance guidelines defined by PMFBY, a crop yield threshold is adhered to for claim clearance.

Even though Indian farmers have access to subsidized insurance policies, claiming coverage or availing credit is not without challenges. CCE needs the intervention of technology to make the process, objective, accurate and fair. Government and private agtech companies are teaming up to solve these challenges jointly.

About CropIn

CropIn is a leading full-stack agri-tech organization that provides SaaS solutions to agribusinesses globally. CropIn’s unique suite of products enable various stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem, including the farmer, to adopt and drive digital strategy across their operations.

In November, CropIn had raised $8 million in a Series B financing from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (London and Seattle).

Using cutting-edge technology like big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and remote sensing, CropIn creates an interconnected network of all these stakeholders at different levels of the agriculture ecosystem, enabling clients to analyze and interpret data to derive real-time actionable insights on standing crop. Businesses can thus leverage technology to effectively drive their initiatives around Digitization, Compliance, Sustainability and Traceability.

With the vision to ‘maximize per acre value’ and the mission to ‘make every farm traceable’, CropIn adds value to agri-businesses by increasing efficiency, scaling productivity, and strengthening sustainability across the board. Thus far, CropIn has digitized over 5 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 2.1 million farmers, while gathering data on 265 crops and 3,500 crop varieties in 30 countries. The SaaS solutions offered by CropIn are crop and location agnostic, and are available on web and mobile devices.

AgriTech Startup CropIn Raises $8 Mn from Chiratae Ventures and Others

CropIn Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an agriculture technology startup, has raised INR 58 crores ($8 million) in a Series B financing from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (London and Seattle). With this investment, CropIn has raised a total funding of $12 million till date.

The fresh funding will scale CropIn’s ‘SmartFarm’ technology platform in India and globally to expand its reach from 3 million acres across 2 million farmers to more than 10 million actively monitored acres across 7 million farmers. With this capital infusion and its increasingly rich data-set, the Company will further develop its machine-learning-based ‘SmartRisk’ platform to achieve unprecedented levels of plot-level crop detection and yield prediction.

Headquartered in Bengaluru with 180+ customers across 29 countries, CropIn enables businesses in the agriculture-ecosystem to adopt a data-driven approach through its ground-to-cloud technology platform. It thus empowers agribusinesses to ‘grow more with less’, and drive initiatives around Digitization, Traceability, Predictability, Sustainability and Compliance. CropIn's client portfolio includes many large global agribusinesses, banks, government bodies and development agencies. Through its product platform, CropIn addresses a global market of digital-based agriculture services that is estimated to hit $4.5 billion by 2020.

The company’s initial product, SmartFarm, is a highly customizable mobile app and web interface for farm management deployed across agribusinesses’ own field agents allowing for business-to-business-to-farmer plot-level farm management. Because data is collected and curated by agribusiness employees active at the plot-level and scrubbed for any inconsistencies by CropIn, there is high-confidence that the information accurately reflects what is happening on the farm representing “ground-truth” data. CropIn then builds on this data to enhance traceability and monitoring for its agribusiness clients through various software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.

“To feed the 9.7 billion people in the world in 2050, agriculture efficiency must increase by 35% - 70% and technology is the key. India’s rich mix of farming practices and small landholdings provide a massive data set to inform our models. Further, as a SaaS company, geography has never been a limiting factor for expanding our customer base. We are currently active in 29 countries throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and in select European markets. As ground-truth information from these geographies continues to fill our data lake, it provides insights that create a paradigm shift in the agriculture ecosystem globally", says CropIn Founder & CEO Krishna Kumar.

At the back end, CropIn’s data lake amplifies this ground-truth data with local weather information and high-resolution satellite imagery, which form the foundation of machine learning. By analyzing and interpreting this data for the 265 crops with nearly 3,500 variants on its platform across billions of data points that grow every day, CropIn is building an agri-information highway that will detect patterns and predict the future of the crop highlighting the risk and opportunity for agri stakeholders. CropIn provides near-real-time actionable insights to agriculture processors, distributors, inputs providers, lenders and insurers through its connector APIs. Additionally, CropIn’s algorithms can establish historical performance of every pixel at farm and regional level.

“We fundamentally believe in the Founders’ vision of creating a global agri-tech leader, while partnering with multiple stakeholders including agri-businesses, farming companies, financial lending & insurance companies. The sheer impact of CropIn for their global customers across 29 countries based on the unique data sets captured by the platform, is staggering. The potential to revolutionize agriculture leveraging technology and machine learning has never been greater, and we believe Krishna and Kunal will continue to pioneer this industry for years ahead”, according to Karan Mohla, Executive Director, Chiratae Ventures India Advisors.

CropIn Technology is a leading "Full-Stack Agri-Tech"​ organization that provides SaaS solutions to agribusinesses globally. CropIn's product suite enables data-driven farming by connecting all the stakeholders in the agri-ecosystem. With the vision to "maximize per acre value"​ and the mission to "make every farm traceable"​, CropIn adds value by increasing efficiency, scaling productivity and strengthening sustainability across the board. CropIn utilizes cutting-edge technologies like Big data analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Remote Sensing to enable its clients to analyze and interpret data to derive real-time actionable insights on standing crop. CropIn has digitized over 3.1 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 2.1 million farmers while managing 265 crops and 3,500 crop varieties on its platform. CropIn's footprint spans across 29 countries with a track record of carrying out the fastest and most successful technology implementations in the Agri-Tech space on a global scale. The SaaS solutions offered by CropIn are crop and location agnostic.

Bangalore's 'Cropin' Is Applying Cloud Technology in Agribusiness Sector (Cloud-based Farm Management)

Agribusiness as a sector is still emerging and evolving in India and Cropin Technologies is one of the leading players in this sector. The startup has an aim of using the advancements in the field of Information Technology on the agribusiness sector. The company has been successful in achieving a safer and efficient food supply chain for consumers all over the world. It was able to do so by putting up a network of ERP and BI solutions that different stakeholders of the agriculture supply chain use and update on a regular basis. This process allows a greater visibility for every participant of the process and ensures safety and superior quality of food for the consumers.

With other advance IT technologies Cropin is using a cloud-based platform to empower the Indian farmer by making every crop traceable so that harvested crops meet best global agricultural practices.

Bangalore based Cropin Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd was founded by Krishna Kumar in August 2010. Krishna left his lucrative job at GE and soon Kunal Prasad a childhood friend and classmate of Kumar joined him after completing his MBA as COO. The startup was founded with an aim of making every farm traceable but within six months the company realized that this idea wasn't feasible as farmers who were the primary stakeholder in the supply chain did not have the means to pay them the amount that was required to sustain the tracing and tracking capabilities of the farm. So, the company decided to sell their idea of traceability of farms to the companies who procured from the farmers on regular basis. This idea became an instant hit and the CropIn wasn't only able to provide benefits to the buyers but also to the farmers and that too in a sustainable way.

The startup with its cloud and mobile based approach works to simplify the complex operational challenges in farm management. The CropIn solution connects companies with all their farms and provides mobility to Farm Field force.

As the solution provided by Cropin is cloud based, thus it is rendered on cell phones and farmers can easily use voice or video to communicate and collaborate with experts to report or to seek input on an issue. They can talk in their local language or better still, upload a picture taken from their cell phone to explain the issue at hand.

It also acts as a friendly platform for farm managers and farmers to interact and react with each other. The technology used allows extensive farm data collection. This data is further backed with rich analytics for quick decision making.

The company is looking forward to take its tracing capabilities to the next level. It is making use of big data and analytics in order to create next generation intelligent systems and agriculture practices which keep learning from the past. The company is also considering using the Google glass for reporting capabilities and information capture and also toying with UAVs to evaluate whether the solution can be envisaged to map the areas under cultivation more effectively.

Bangalore's 'Cropin' Is Applying Cloud Technology in Agribusiness Sector (Cloud-based Farm Management)

Agribusiness as a sector is still emerging and evolving in India and Cropin Technologies is one of the leading players in this sector. The startup has an aim of using the advancements in the field of Information Technology on the agribusiness sector. The company has been successful in achieving a safer and efficient food supply chain for consumers all over the world. It was able to do so by putting up a network of ERP and BI solutions that different stakeholders of the agriculture supply chain use and update on a regular basis. This process allows a greater visibility for every participant of the process and ensures safety and superior quality of food for the consumers.

With other advance IT technologies Cropin is using a cloud-based platform to empower the Indian farmer by making every crop traceable so that harvested crops meet best global agricultural practices.

Bangalore based Cropin Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd was founded by Krishna Kumar in August 2010. Krishna left his lucrative job at GE and soon Kunal Prasad a childhood friend and classmate of Kumar joined him after completing his MBA as COO. The startup was founded with an aim of making every farm traceable but within six months the company realized that this idea wasn't feasible as farmers who were the primary stakeholder in the supply chain did not have the means to pay them the amount that was required to sustain the tracing and tracking capabilities of the farm. So, the company decided to sell their idea of traceability of farms to the companies who procured from the farmers on regular basis. This idea became an instant hit and the CropIn wasn't only able to provide benefits to the buyers but also to the farmers and that too in a sustainable way.

The startup with its cloud and mobile based approach works to simplify the complex operational challenges in farm management. The CropIn solution connects companies with all their farms and provides mobility to Farm Field force.

As the solution provided by Cropin is cloud based, thus it is rendered on cell phones and farmers can easily use voice or video to communicate and collaborate with experts to report or to seek input on an issue. They can talk in their local language or better still, upload a picture taken from their cell phone to explain the issue at hand.

It also acts as a friendly platform for farm managers and farmers to interact and react with each other. The technology used allows extensive farm data collection. This data is further backed with rich analytics for quick decision making.

The company is looking forward to take its tracing capabilities to the next level. It is making use of big data and analytics in order to create next generation intelligent systems and agriculture practices which keep learning from the past. The company is also considering using the Google glass for reporting capabilities and information capture and also toying with UAVs to evaluate whether the solution can be envisaged to map the areas under cultivation more effectively.