Agritech Platform DeHaat Onboards 500 FPOs; Facilitates Full Stack Agri Offerings for Thousands of Farmers

Agritech firm DeHaat's FY23 revenue set to rise by over 80% to Rs 2,300 crore

DeHaat, India’s largest full stack AgriTech platform offering end-to-end agricultural services to farmers in India, today announced it has successfully onboarded more than 500 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) across 12 Indian states, directly impacting livelihood of over 30,000 associated member farmers. Currently, 503 FPOs are actively engaged with DeHaat through its full stack agri value chain offerings. DeHaat recently raises $60 million in Series E round co-led by Sofina, Temasek.

The announcement comes at a time when the Indian government has outlined plans in the Union Budget to form and promote 10,000+ FPOs across country & expand digital technologies to boost the country’s agricultural sector, including doubling down on its efforts to enable agritech startups to drive farmer centric solutions through initiation of Agricultural Accelerator Fund, and creation of Digital Public Infrastructure for the sector. Being a market leader in AgriTech, DeHaat has its strong association with FPO related nodal agencies like SFAC & NABARD.

Commenting on the milestone, Shashank Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, DeHaat said "DeHaat's affiliation with 503 FPOs in 12 states aligns with our 'Farmer's First' vision of putting farmers first in all we do. Our tech enabled 360-degree agri value chain interventions have resulted in 50-70% income enhancement for the associated farmers & at the same time have enabled FPOs to get complete institutional support for their overall sustainability."

DeHaat, a business-to-farmers (B2F) platform offers end-to-end agricultural services to over 1.8Mn farmers through an expansive network of 11,000+ DeHaat Centers across 12 prominent Indian agricultural states. DeHaat’s association with FPOs has enabled seamless access of 360 degree agricultural offerings throughout the crop life cycle including personalized transfer of critical knowledge to farmers, last mile availability of high quality input products, increased adoption of digital capabilities, smooth access to credit & insurance and ease of market access, driving enhanced yields and better price realization for over 30,000 farmers.

Shashi Bhushan, Director, Agrimeo Nalanda Kisan Producer Company Ltd, an independent FPO based in Bihar with a member base of 700 farmers said, "We started our association with DeHaat 8 months ago and are extremely satisfied with the way our relationship has grown. Our limited agri input demand & farm produce scale prevented us from reaching out to competitive channels resulting in us not being able to offer complete set of agri services to our member farmers. DeHaat gave us access to best source of agri input as well as much better farm gate price of Paddy for our FPO. Besides, we get complete logistic support for input delivery at our centre as well as aggregation of the agri produce. We are also in discussion to activate financial services through the DeHaat platform. In last 8 months, we could provide overall agri value chain services worth INR 71 Lakhs to our member farmers through association across input & output verticals and we are confident to grow our business to INR 1.5 Cr in FY 2023-24."

About DeHaat:

DeHaat is a technology-based platform offering full stack agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high-quality agricultural inputs, customised farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages for selling their produce.

Patna & Gurgaon based business to farmers (B2F) platform DeHaat was founded in 2012 byIIT, IIM & NIT alumni Amrendra Singh, Shyam Sundar Singh, Adarsh Srivastav & Shashank Kumar, and offers end-to-end agricultural services to over 1.8Mn farmers through an expansive network of 11,000+ DeHaat Centers across 12 prominent Indian agricultural states.

As a platform, DeHaat has onboarded 2,000+ agribusiness institutions including inputmanufacturers, FMCG players, banks, insurance partners & bulk output exporters, offering them direct access to farmers to drive efficiency & transparency. At the same time, DeHaat is offering AI enabled crop advisory to farmers for 30+ crops in regional language on one hand while also ensuring that farmers get access to end-to-end agri value chain offerings through its franchised last mile network on the other.

For more information on DeHaat, please visit: http://agrevolution.in

Full-stack Agritech Platform DeHaat Raises $12 Mn in Funding led by Sequoia India

Agritech platform DeHaat announced that it has raised a USD 12 million (INR 83 crore) Series A round led by Sequoia India, with participation from FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. Existing investors Omnivore and AgFunder also participated in this round.

Based in Gurgaon and Patna and founded in 2012 by IIT, IIM and NIT alumni, DeHaat is a technology-based platform offering full-stack agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high quality agri inputs, customized farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages for selling their produce.

With an aim to becoming a one-stop solution that meet the needs of Indian farmers while helping them increase their profitability, the platform integrates a digital marketplace with a rural network of last mile service delivery centers. DeHaat’s annual revenue has grown by 3.5x since March ’19.The company plans to scale up to 2,000 rural retail centres for last mile delivery as well as farm produce aggregation and 1 million farmers on the network by 2021. DeHaat will use some of the new funding to automate its supply chain and build the next layer of data analytics to drive further supply chain efficiency.

Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO of DeHaat said, “We are excited to partner with Sequoia India and FMO as we drive towards one million farmers on the DeHaat platform. Sequoia’s deep expertise in B2B platforms and technology products combined with FMO’s expertise in agricultural value chain financing will help DeHaat accelerate its growth while delivering massive impact for the farmers we work with.”

Currently serving over 210,000 farmers across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha, DeHaat provides farmers with access to over 3,000 agricultural inputs, combined with AI-based customised crop advisory content of pest & disease management for major crops delivered via mobile app and call centers. The platform also aggregates corn, wheat, rice, fruits, and vegetables from farmers on their network and directly supplies to over 200 commodity bulk buyers, including retail chains, e-commerce players, FMCG giants, and SME food processors.

“Indian agriculture is a $350B+ industry powered by close to 100M small and independent farmers. This industry is on the brink of a massive transformation with ease of regulation, famers getting organized and increasing smart phone penetration and DeHaat is leveraging these trends to build the next-gen product in agricultural supply chain”, said Abhishek Mohan, VP, Sequoia Capital India LLP. “The tipping point that led to Sequoia India’s decision to partner with them, was the field visit, where the farmers expressed how proud they were to be associated with a platform they felt truly worked in their favour. This impact and deep brand loyalty stems from the leadership team’s razor-sharp focus, deep empathy and fine execution”, he added.

Jaap Reinking, Director Private Equity at FMO, said “Increasing economic uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a grave concern to all. Especially in these challenging times it is important to continue our support for innovative businesses in emerging markets, and focus on accelerating sustainable development. That is why we are proud to announce our partnership with Green Agrevolution - DeHaat through the FMO Ventures Program. We look forward to supporting this Indian Agri Tech platform with our expertise in agricultural value chain financing and rural development programs.”

DeHaat earlier raised a USD 4 million (INR 29 crore) pre-Series A round in March 2019, led by Omnivore and AgFunder, which was topped up in May 2019 with an additional USD 3 million (INR 20 crore) of venture debt from Trifecta Capital. Dexter capital was the exclusive advisor of this funding round.

About DeHaat:

DeHaat is a technology based platform offering full stack agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high quality agricultural inputs, customized farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages for selling their produce. For more information on DeHaat, please visit: http://agrevolution.in

About Sequoia India:

Sequoia India helps daring founders build legendary companies, from idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India operates in Southeast Asia and India where we actively partner with founders from a wide range of companies, across categories, including BYJUs, Carousell, Druva, GO- JEK, OYO Rooms, Tokopedia, Truecaller, Zilingo, Zomato and more. We spur founders to push the boundaries of what’s possible. In partnering with Sequoia, startups benefit from 47 years of tribal knowledge and lessons learned working with companies

like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Dropbox, Google, JD.com, LinkedIn, Meituan and Stripe early on.

From the beginning, non-profits have been the backbone of our LP base, which means founders’ accomplishments make a meaningful difference. The majority of our profits – over $16 billion since 2000 alone – are returned to great causes, like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT. For more information on Sequoia's work in India and SE Asia, visit sequoiacap.com/india


About FMO

FMO is the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. As a leading impact investor, FMO supports sustainable private sector growth in developing countries and emerging markets by investing in ambitious projects and entrepreneurs. FMO believes that a strong private sector leads to economic and social development and has a 50-year proven track-record of empowering people to employ their skills and improve their quality of life. FMO focuses on three sectors that have high development impact: financial institutions, energy, and agribusiness, food water. With a committed portfolio of EUR 10.4 billion spanning over 83 countries, FMO is one

of the larger bilateral private sector developments banks globally. For more information: please visit www.fmo.nl

About Omnivore:

Omnivore is a venture capital firm, based in India, which funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. For further information on Omnivore, please visit: http://omnivore.vc

About AgFunder:

AgFunder is an online venture capital platform that invests in agrifoodtech startups globally. For further information on AgFunder, please visit: https://agfunder.com

Online Farmers' Marketplace DeHaat Raises $2.84 Mn in Venture Debt from Trifecta Capital

Gurgaon-based DeHaat, a technology-led farmers’ marketplace to offer complete seeds-to-market services to farmers, has received a commitment of ₹ 20 crore (~ $2.84 Mn) in venture debt from Trifecta Capital, a San Francisco based seed stage venture capital fund.

The debt fund raised will be released to DeHaat over a 12-month period, which the startup would use to pilot financial services for farmers, including credit and insurance products.

DeHaat has raised the debt capital soon after two months when the startup had raised $4 million in a pre-series A round of funding led by impact investor Omnivore Partners along with US-based agriculture investor AgFunder and few other angel investors.

Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, said in a statement to leading daily, "Our larger goal is to become a one-stop destination for Indian farmers, which can meet all of their agricultural needs.This funding from Trifecta Capital will provide us additional capacity as we introduce financial services to farmers on our platform."

DeHaat aims to maximize farmers'​ income through technology-led interventions by offering all agricultural needs of farmers under one roof in an accessible and affordable way.

Rahul Khanna, co-founder and Managing Partner at Trifecta Capital said, “DeHaat is one of the most capital efficient startups we have ever come across. They have a strong hold on unit economics and an amazing proposition for farmers as well as other value chain players."

According to DeHaat's LinkedIn company profile, Currently more than 25,000 farmers are registered with 50+ DeHaat micro-entrepreneurs and are getting direct access to quality agri inputs (from UPL, DuPont, Bayer, etc.), advisory (DeHaat panel of esteemed scientists and advisors), and market (to ITC, Godrej, Reliance, Metro, etc.) of value more than ₹ 3.5 Cr/month in Bihar, U.P and Odisha.

The startup is targeting to reach out to 100,000 farmers through 150+ DeHaat micro-entrepreneurs/centers by March'18 and 1 million+ farmers by 2020.

About Trifecta, it is a leading venture debt firm which had launched its first venture debt fund in 2014 and is now raising a ₹750-crore second fund.

[Top Featured Image - ShashankFnF @Twitter]

Online Market for Farm Products DeHaat Raises $4 Mn in Funding from Omnivore, AgFunder

Gurgaon-based DeHaat, a technology based farmers’ marketplace that offers complete seeds-to-market end to end services to farmers​, has raised US$4 million ( ~₹30 crore) in a pre-series A round of funding led by impact investor Omnivore.

US-based agriculture investor AgFunder and several angel investors also contributed to the round, which was the first institutional round of DeHaat.

The startup will utilize the fresh funds in reaching out to over 250,000 farmers over the next 12 months. It also plans to set up 14 regional warehouses to store inventory and after a year or so expand to Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

Earlier in 2016, DeHaat had raised about ₹50 lakh from the IIM Calcutta Innovation Centre. Prior to this, it has raised ₹50 lakh in 2014 from angel investors.

Founded in 2012, by IIT Delhi graduate Shashank Kumar, DeHaat aims to maximize farmers'​ income through technology-led interventions by offering all agricultural needs of farmers under one roof in an accessible and affordable way.

Through DeHaat platform, farmers, on one side get access to best quality input (seeds, fertilizers, crop protection, agri-equipment, credit, etc.),while on the other side they also get access to institutional buyers for their produce (grains, F&V, pulses, spices and medicinal herbs).

DeHaat now intends to reach out to over 250,000 farmers over the next 12 months with the fresh capital. It also plans to set up 14 regional warehouses to store inventory although it won’t own any, Kumar said. After a year or so, it plans to expand to Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

Recent Activity in Agri-Tech Space

Earlier in January, Chennai based Agri-tech start-up WayCool had raised $17 million, as a combination of equity and debt from LGT Impact, prominent angels, and institutional lenders, including Northern Arc Capital and Caspian.

In the same month, agrifood tech accelerator Gastrotope announced the names of 5 startups in its first cohort of its program. Gastrotope was launched in September last year by Taizo Son’s Mistletoe, GSF, and Infobridge.

In December, Bangalore-based Ninjacart, an agri-marketing platform that connects farmers with retailers, had raised ₹250 crore in series B round of funding from venture capital firms Accel Partners (US), Switzerland-based Syngenta Ventures and Neoplux, a South Korean private equity firm.

Recently, Saas-based agri-tech firm CropIn announced that it has grown by 300% during the last 15 months. CropIn is backed by Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (London & Seattle).

Source - LiveMint
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