Vegetable Growing Tech Startup Eeki Foods Raises Funding from GSF Accelerator, Gulf-Based Syndicate and Others

Team Eeki

Gurgaon-based AgriTech startup Eekifoods today said it has raised Pre-Series A funding from GSF Accelerator. Other investors in this round include Naho Shigeta, Founder and CEO of Infobridge Holdings; Shalin Sanjay Shah, Director at Core91 VC; and a Gulf-based Syndicate. Existing Eekifoods investors; Sumit Jain, Country Head of BirdEye; and Dipesh Palod also participated in the round. 

The startup said the funds will primarily be used for further technology development, scaling operations and team building.

Founded in 2019, by IIT Bombay graduates - Amit Kumar and Abhay Singh, Eekifoods has developed a unique and proprietary vegetable growing technology, which allows it to produce completely residue-free, Indian and exotic vegetables and sell them profitably at near-market prices. This has been possible because Eeki’s technology has reduced the cost of growing by as much as 40% for a variety of Indian fruit bearing vegetables, as compared to other coco-peat based hydroponics technologies. 

Founders - Eekifoods

Eekifoods Cofounder Abhay Singh said -- 

Eekifoods is borne out of two years of research and development of a unique technology, which focuses on inculcating cutting-edge agricultural techniques that are both sustainable and economically viable. Today, we are able to grow tomatoes, bottlegourd, eggplant, cucumber and other vegetables and sell them profitably at near market prices.

We are excited to have the backing of renowned investors like GSF Accelerator at such an early stage, and this funding is a strong validation of our mission at Eekifoods to build the most sustainable agriculture platform in the world.

Unlike several other hydroponic growers focusing on producing exotic vegetables, Eekifoods also grows popular Indian vegetables like coriander, tomato, eggplant, cucumber and bitter gourd.

Rajesh Sawhney, Founder and CEO of GSF Accelerator said --

Eekifoods has the most advance Hydroponics technology developed indigenously by Indian talent. Companies like Eeki are important to the future of Indian agriculture. Eeki provides a leapfrog opportunity to Indian agriculture and its modernization.

Founded in 2012, GSF is India’s number one technology accelerator, with a portfolio of hits including Whatfix, Slintel, Quizizz, Docsapp, Flinto, Citymall, Gamezop, Well Being, Zen Duty, Khabri and Vaultedge. The accelarator has also had several successful exits including Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook), Dailyrounds (bought by M3 Japan) and Pokkt (acquired by Anymind, Japan) among others.

Eekifoods also said it is looking for new farm partners, and the startup in turn will provide them with consistent income via farming-as-a-service. The startup currently has four functional farms in Rajasthan that are remotely managed and controlled by Eeki’s farm IoT. It is looking to set up at least 12 more farms by the end of this financial year and produce 84 metric tons of produce monthly, for sale in the NCR and Rajasthan area.

Low Code IoT Platform Thingsup Raises Funding from GSF Accelerator

iobot Team

Mumbai, May 4, 2021: Pune-based iobot, parent company of Low Code IoT platform Thingsup today announced it has raised USD100K from GSF Accelerator, India's leading startup accelerator, backed by founders including Rajesh Sawhney, Founder and CEO of GSF Accelerator, Pras Hanuma, CEO of Infoquest; Dinesh Agarwal, CEO of Indiamart; and J. Murugavel, CEO of Matrimony.com. iobot said that the investment will be used to cater to the burgeoning demand for digitalising the cold chain logistics, the market for which is rapidly expanding due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Thingsup is a low code, SaaS-based platform that comes with ready to use wireless IoT sensors and enables businesses to digitalise their entire supply chain operations within a few days, instead of months. The platform analyzes the IoT sensor data with ML-based predictive algorithms to help cold chain stakeholders to get end-to-end supply chain visibility, reduce wastage and optimize their operations with data driven insights. Thingsup was launched in 2020, while iobot was founded in 2016 by Akshay Ghadage and Pranav Naiknavare.

Founded in 2012, GSF is India's number one technology accelerator, with a portfolio of hits including Whatfix, Slintel, Quizizz, Docsapp, Flinto, Citymall, Gamezop, Well Being, Zen Duty, Khabri and Vaultedge. The accelarator has also had several successful exits including Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook), Dailyrounds (bought by M3 Japan) and Pokkt (acquired by Anymind, Japan) among others.

Pranav Naiknavare, Co-founder at iobot said, "The global cold chain and asset monitoring needs are growing exponentially to maintain shipment quality and operational optimisation. Thingsup is today ready to meet this demand and this investment will go a long way in helping us scale up and reach more clients."

Thingsup's wireless sensor nodes are specifically designed for package health monitoring and enable individual-level package health monitoring possible and economically viable at scale. The platform includes dedicated modules for asset monitoring, fleet management, real time temperature monitoring and shipment Integrity monitoring. The startup already counts a diverse clientele from sectors like dairy, F&B, healthcare and e-groceries.

Rajesh Sawhney, Founder and CEO of GSF Accelerator said, "The iobot team has built a fantastic low code IoT platform in Thingsup and the feedback from their customers universally underlines the tremendous business value that their platform is already delivering. We are really excited to partner with them and are confident that they are going to be among the biggest IoT success stories to emerge from India in the months and years to come."

"With Thingsup, we are helping businesses continually track the condition of their assets and have real-time and journey wise status of packages using easy to deploy IoT sensors and a powerful analytics platform," said Akshay Ghadage, Cofounder at iobot.

iobot is also aiming to expand their market and target other fast-growing verticals like EV mobility connectivity. "While the cold chain logistics market is our primary and core target, we are looking to take advantage of the sector-agnostic nature of our technology to serve customers in other industries as well," Akshay added.

"As a case in point, one of our customers in the Liquid Gas segment was recently able to detect theft in the delivery of very low temperature liquid gas to his customers. They are now able to monitor his gas tankers in real-time on route as well as during loading and unloading," Akshay said.

GSF Accelerator Announces $1 Mn Investment in 4 Startups for its 6th Batch

Global Super Angels Forum (GSF), a startup accelerator as well as an early-stage fund, has announced USD $1M investment into 4 startups as a part of its sixth batch. GSF has so far funded 50 startups.

“This year, we have invested in 4 deep tech startups Their focus ranges from Manufacturing Tech to vernacular content marketplace, from AI driven sales analytics to deep learning legal & FinTech. These 4 startups are at seed stage and have innovative solutions with paying customers. Our global ecosystem of mentors, advisors, investors and EiRs has helped these 4 startups over the last 6 months” said Rajesh, founder of GSF Accelerator.

As part of this multi-country program, the startups have been mentored by top founders, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in Bangalore and have recently completed an immersion program in the Silicon Valley. Next, they will visit China and Japan for exposure to the investment and startup communities in these countries.

Founded in 2011, GSF team consists of founder Rajesh Sawhney, Operating Partner Rajat Harlalka and EIRs Nirmal Shah and Bhargavi Vijaykumar. All four are tech founders themselves.

The four startups are:

Chizel is a Cloud platform that offers a convenient way to manufacture engineering components. The platform employs self-learning AI algorithms that harness the full potential of digitally connected machines to provide complete manufacturing solutions to the customers.

Khabri is a fast growing digital platform for vernacular audio content. Khabri Mobile app allows content creators to create channels and programmes and reach millions of vernacular listeners across India and overseas.

Slintel: is a Technographics powered discovery and AI driven recommendation platform helping companies improve their sales conversion rates by predicting who their next customer would be.

Vaultedge: is a smart AI platform that helps Banks & BPOs perform Loan Underwriting and Contract Abstraction in real-time.

GSF has a strong track record of success with its portfolio companies: Here are a few portfolio companies of GSF Accelerator:

Little Eye Labs acquired by Facebook, their only acquisition in India

Pokkt raised capital Jafco, Singtel, Jungle

Silverpush raised series A from IDG, M&S, and others

Dailyrounds raised series A from Accel, Beenext, and others
Docsapp raised series A from Bessemer Capital, Rebright Capital and others.

Browntape raised series B from Gati, Seed Fund, Growthstory and others
HackerEarth raised series A from DHI Group, Prime Venture, Bennett and others.

Pluss App raised Series A from IDG and others and acquired by Netmedics.

Zapr raised series B from Fox Media, Flipkart, Saavn, and others

Whatfix raised series B from Stellaris, Helion and others.

Flintobox raised a Series A funding from Lightbox and others

Quizziz raised a series A round from Nexus, Prime Venture and others
Orowealth raised a series A round from Money Forward, Powerhouse Venture, M&S Partners and others

GSF 5.0: Tech Founders to Fund and Mentor Startups in the Next Iteration of GSF Accelerator

Applications open today (Monday) through July 31st for India’s leading accelerator program: GSF Accelerator. Now in its fifth iteration, GSF experience is uniquely crafted for Indian startups offering deep immersion in both Indian and international markets. Selected tech startups will get unparalleled access to not only the Indian tech community with hands-on mentorship from five of India’s leading tech founders, but also access to GSF’s global community of over 400 mentors and startup founders.

GSF has a strong track record of success with its portfolio companies: Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook in 2014) Pokkt (funded by Jafco, Singtel, Jungle) SilverPush (funded by IDG ventures, 500 startups) Zapr (funded by Flipkart and Svaan) Overcart (funded by JSW and Omidyar) HackerEarth (funded by Prime Venture) Flinto (funded by Globevestor and others) Browntape (funded by Seedfund and others) Timesaverz (funded by Unilazer Ventures and others) Dailyrounds (funded by Accel) Pluss App (funded by IDG and others) DocsApp (funded by Rebright and others) and Gamezop (funded by Kwan and others).

In August, GSF will welcome 5 new startups into the 3-month program. Selected startups will spend two months in India to refine their products, followed by trips to San Francisco and Tokyo for an immersion in global tech ecosystem and meeting with leading tech investors. Backed by five of India’s top founders, the accelerator offers the chance to take your startup to the next level with hands-on mentorship and access to its robust network.  Typically, GSF invests in the startups in two rounds: first round of USD $50,000 in each startup, followed by co-investments in seed rounds.

“This iteration of GSF has been redesigned to be an intense and intimate experience for a small group of startups,“ says Rajesh Sawhney - founder of GSF Accelerator and co-founder of InnerChef. He says, “We would accept only 5 startups in this batch. Fundamental ethos of GSF has always been for the founders by the founders. Each startup will be assigned a chief mentor from amongst the five founders that have come together. We have also partnered with Hiro Mashita, M&S Partners of Japan who will open doors to the Japanese tech and investor ecosystem for the selected startups.”

Application Process: Apply here by July 31st. GSF is looking for Indian tech startups who have at least an initial prototype built. Selected startups must relocate to NCR for the duration of the program with accommodations provided for those living outside NCR. Shortlisted startups will complete phone screens and in-person interview with the investment team.

Started in 2012, GSF network has three components: an accelerator, an angel network, and tech conferences. GSF is India’s leading startup accelerator program, having accelerated over 40 startups in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. Among these, 5 startups have exited, about 40% have raised venture rounds, and over 80% have gone on to raise angel funding. The GSF 5.0 investment team includes: Rajesh Sawhney, Hiro Mashita, M&S Partners, Anand Chandrasekaran (ex-CPO of Snapdeal), Sumesh Menon (founder of Utopia Mobile and Woo), Dinesh Agarwal (founder of Indiamart), and Ashish Toshniwal (founder of Y Media Labs, San Francisco).