Increasing Direct-to-Farmer reach in India : Dhanuka partners with Agritech Startup Gramophone

Supporting the Future of AgriTech, one of India's leading agro-chemical Company, Dhanuka Agritech Ltd. has partnered with Gramophone, to provide crop solutions to Indian farmers. Dhanuka brings its agronomy expertise and world class technology on the tech platform of Gramophone, for farmers to get direct and easy access to affordable crop intensive technology. During the pandemic, the advent of digital technology adoption became necessary and this initiative expanded its reach to benefit the farming community with digitized solutions. With 5,30,000+ farmers on board, it will provide the entire exclusive farm management to  farmers with a personalised and easy to use digitized approach. 

Reaching out to farmers and catering to their needs requires in-depth on ground knowledge and the right channel to reach them. Gramophone works on a personalised solution approach that enables farmers get the right crop inputs. The collaboration with agriculture giant Dhanuka will pave the way for a new dawn in the agriculture industry as it enables customized solutions along with product oriented solutions to farmers. This platform will create a one-stop resolution for crop solution requirement at farmer's doorstep.

Commenting on the partnership, Tauseef Khan, CEO and Co-Founder of Gramophone said, "Our partnership with Dhanuka is a testament that the agriculture industry is moving towards tech enablement to reach customers. This association will help us to reach deeper markets and pave the way for better yields for farmers across the country. We will continue to bring innovation in our solutions and provide an all-inclusive seamless experience to farmers in India"

Gramophone is on a mission to create a future of farming that puts 'Farmers First' by democratising knowledge, building transparency in transactions, and creating a connected ecosystem for farmers' business. We are excited to see how farmers are adopting newer opportunities to maximise their income.

Partha Sengupta, National Marketing Head, Dhanuka Agritech Ltd mentions, "Dhanuka is an organisation committed to Indian farmers to improve their yields and profit. Dhanuka is extending its foot and collaborating with multiple alternate channel partners like Gramophone to increase its reach to farmers and use technology to support farmers to directly access latest Agri input services."

The collaboration will deliver Agronomic Intelligence at convenience of delivery of Agri Inputs like seeds, crop protection & crop nutrition products. The start-up has tied up with the local young rural entrepreneurs for last mile delivery and companies like Dhanuka will be looking at getting granular real time data of farmers all over India from Gramophone. This will improve the quality by helping farmers attain the best quality inputs for better yields.

About Gramophone: Gramophone is pioneering Intelligent Farming Platform - using data to guide a farmer in selecting the right agricultural inputs for maximum yield. To provide products to farmers seamlessly, Gramophone has established a decentralized distribution model which gives speed and quality service to the farmers. Gramophone provides agronomic intelligence based on parameters like soil type, irrigation methodologies, weather, and crop type, to help farmers select the right crop and inputs which can be procured in one place through its platform. 

 

About Dhanuka:

Dhanuka Agritech Limited is one of India's leading agrochemical Company and is listed by Forbes Magazine in the category of "200 Best under A Billion Companies in Asia Pacific. The Company is listed with Bombay Stock Exchange & National Stock Exchange of India and has been bestowed with many awards & recognitions from time to time. The Company has a pan-India presence through its marketing offices in all major states in India, with a network of more than 7,200 distributors & dealers selling to over 75,000 retailers across India and reaching out to more than 10 million farmers. The Company has technical tie-ups with many American and Japanese companies. Dhanuka with more than 150 registrations including Herbicides, Insecticides, Fungicides and Plant Growth Regulators /Bio- Stimulants and with over 350 active SKUs has one of the most extensive market penetration in Agrochemical Industry. Dhanuka has solutions for all major crops grown in the country.

Infoedge backed Agri-Tech Startup Gramophone Ties up with Local Rural Entrepreneurs for Last Mile Product Delivery

In order to support the disrupted rural supply chain, Gramophone has tied up with the local young rural entrepreneurs for last mile delivery which resulted in double business in last three months as compared to previous year.

One of the main challenges in the agriculture supply chain is the last mile - the final leg from the distribution centre to the customer. If we look at the need of the hour is to provide agri inputs to the farmers as quickly as possible, within 1-2 days, especially seeds and crop protection, which contribute to over 80% of gramophone’s product portfolio.

Gramophone’s distribution model has lesser time of shipment of around 1-2 days only. To provide products to farmer quickly, Gramophone’s inventory need to be closer to the customers, and with this principle, they have created a decentralized distribution model with the setup of Gram Uday centers.

From these Gram Uday centers, Gramophone is further moving the material to different clusters, the geographical indicators served by their farm advisors, from where the product is finally delivered to the farmers at their doorstep. With this model, their delivery time has reduced from 4-5 days to 1-2 days as they don’t need it consolidate the demand to the same extent as any other e-commerce company who operate out of centralized model.

These young rural entrepreneurs have delivery tie ups with Gramophone, creating a second source of income for these entrepreneurs. This last mile delivery network is also helping gramophone to serve farmers better. In addition to this, the company has also tied up with local shops in the villages to act like a micro warehouses, keeping various parcels of the farmers nearby. From these partner shops, their delivery boys pickup and deliver it to the farmers directly.

The company’s supply chain model has been designed in a way that it can demonstrate its fruit-fullness even at times of crisis. Cotton and chilli are widely cultivated in the Barwani, Khandwa and Burhan districts during these months. We are delivering all the required Agri Inputs at the doorstep of farmers in these districts.

“We had strategically built our operational model to have deeper penetrations through our Omnichannel approach. Our technology architecture was geared to deliver Agronomic Intelligence personalised to the farm level of a farmer who worked efficiently without any ground support. With a decentralised demand generation and delivery model, we could not only aggressively grow our business but also gain the TRUST of the farmers in such time.” Tauseef Khan, Co-Founder at Gramophone.

AgriTech Startup Gramophone Raises ₹24 Cr from Info Edge, Asha Impact and Better Capital

Agri-tech startup Gramophone on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 24 crore (USD 3.5 million) in funding from Info Edge, Raveen Sastry (Co-founder of Myntra.com), Asha Impact and Better Capital.

Info Edge is an existing investor in Gramophone, while Asha Impact is a platform founded by Vikram Gandhi (former Credit Suisse executive) and Pramod Bhasin (former President and CEO of Genpact), a statement said.

"The startup is rapidly scaling up its operations and will use the funds to expand across several states," it added.

Founded in 2016, Gramophone provides actionable agronomic insights coupled with last-mile delivery of agriculture inputs to farmers through a smartphone app and a call centre. The startup's last-mile delivery model has helped them serve over 2.5 lakh farmers in the remotest villages across central India.

Indore-based Agstack Technologies, which operates online marketplace for farmers Gramophone, had earlier secured ₹ 14 crore from Info Edge in April this year.

"We are excited to see how farmers are adopting newer opportunities to maximize their income. This investment will enable us to invest aggressively on product, data science and scale operations across geographies," Gramophone co-founder and CEO Tauseef Khan said.

In a BSE filing, Info Edge said it owned about 37.21 per cent of Agstack Technologies (Gramophone) as of June 30, 2019.

"Gramophone has signed a definitive agreement to raise funds from a couple of other investors, consequent to which the company's shareholding in Gramophone
stands reduced to about 33.21 per cent. The company has not participated in this round of fund raising by Gramophone," the filing added.

Khan clarified that Info Edge (India), in the first closing earlier this year, had invested through its wholly-owned subsidiary about Rs 14 crore in Gramophone.

"The remaining amount of Rs 10 crore has been received from our other investors, in the second closing of the same round," he added. PTI SR SR