Arboreal Secures ₹230 Cr Series A to Scale Specialty Food & Nutraceutical Ingredient Innovation in India

• Co-led by Omnivore and EAAA Alternatives, the round will accelerate proprietary R&D, advanced manufacturing and commercialization of next-generation functional ingredients.

Arboreal Bioinnovations Private Limited, India’s first specialty food and nutraceutical ingredients technology company, today announced the successful close of its ₹230 crore Series A funding round. EAAA, the alternatives arm of Edelweiss and Omnivore co-led the funding round, with continued backing from existing investor Rainmatter by Zerodha.

The transaction represents one of the largest Series A fundraises in India’s specialty food ingredients sector. Arboreal will deploy the capital to expand its manufacturing capacity, strengthen its research and development capabilities, and accelerate the commercialization of its next generation of functional ingredients.

Arboreal has built a differentiated “contextual innovation” model focused on developing ingredient solutions for the specific nutritional, functional, sensory and commercial requirements of Indian consumers and brands. This approach has enabled hundreds of emerging and challenger brands to launch category-defining products and scale rapidly across the food, beverage and nutraceutical markets.

The company’s integrated ingredient technology platform brings together ingredient engineering, process research and development, formulation science and precision manufacturing. Arboreal has developed and commercialized proprietary ingredients across next-generation proteins, cocoa-based ingredients, natural zero-calorie sweeteners and functional fibres, with several additional ingredient platforms currently under development.

Having more than doubled its growth year-on-year, Arboreal’s portfolio of “better-for-you” ingredients and its “ingredient-first innovation” model have supported more than 300 product launches across over 1,100 consumer brands and nutraceutical manufacturers during the past 18 months.
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Swati Pandey, Co-Founder and CEO, Arboreal Bioinnovations, said - This fundraise is a strong validation of the direction we are taking as a company. It gives us the fuel to accelerate our mission of building clean, science-led solutions that address some of the world's most pressing nutritional and food challenges, with innovation originating in India and reaching consumers globally.

Manish Chauhan, Co-Founder and COO,  Bioinnovations said - This fundraise marks an important milestone in Arboreal’s journey from building IP led ingredient technologies to enabling big shifts across categories through ingredient first innovation. The confidence shown by EAAA, Omnivore and Rainmatter validates both the strength of our platform and the opportunity ahead of us. It gives us the ability to invest more deeply in science, manufacturing, talent and long-term innovation, while building a platform capable of creating differentiated ingredients for some of the world’s most important food and nutraceutical brands. We are excited to build Arboreal into a globally respected ingredient technology company from India.

Ashish Agarwal, Managing Director, Private Equity, EAAA Alternatives, added, " The investment in Arboreal reflects the core philosophy of our Fund’sstrategy - backing businesses with the potential to emerge as category leaders. As the first investment from our Discovery Fund II, we are particularly excited at the long term growth prospects of Arboreal’s next-generation yeast protein products We look forward to working with Swati and Manish as they continue to build category leadership in R&D-led nutraceutical ingredients.”

Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner at Omnivore, said, "The shift toward clean-label and functional foods requires engineered ingredients that deliver clear health benefits without sacrificing taste or margins. Arboreal fills a critical market gap with locally developed formulations. From sweetener alternatives to novel yeast proteins and collagens, Arboreal’s R&D stack positions them to power the next wave of health and wellness brands."

Dinesh Pai, Head of investments at Rainmatter, said, "We all lament that India does not allocate capital for enough R&D. Aside from all the things everyone else shared in their reasoning for the investment, we truly wanted to back Swati and Manish in building a world class R&D team working on food ingredients from India. We believe that they are the right team, with exceptional grit to chase down this problem. Rainmatter exists to back these audacious bets, and this is one of them."

Former Tesla Executuves' Biomaterials Startup altM Raises $3.5 Mn in Seed Round Led by Omnivore’s New Fund

altM Founders – Yugal & Apoorv

altM plans to use these funds to bring forth an engineering- and manufacturing-driven lens to circularity and sustainability. This marks the first investment from the Omnivore Agritech & Climate Sustainability Fund.

Bengaluru based Biomaterials startup altM announced that it has raised a USD 3.5 million Seed round led by Omnivore. Other investors include Theia Ventures, Thai Wah Ventures, Sanjiv Rangrass, Neha Mudaliar, Maninder Gulati from OYO, Mirik Gogri from Spectrum Impact, and Paula Mariwala from Aureolis Ventures.

Founded by former-Tesla senior executives — Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain — altM is Omnivore’s first investment from its third fund, which recently had a first close at USD 150 million. This is also the firm’s fourth investment under its OmniX Bio initiative, which was setup in 2021 to back early-stage agrifood life science startups.

altM aims to develop and manufacture scalable biomaterials to help large industries reduce their carbon footprints across their supply chains. The startup uses lignocellulosic agricultural residues as their raw material to produce advanced materials as alternatives to unsustainable incumbents. Given its sustainability potential and functional properties, lignocellulosic biomass offers a unique technological appeal to form a family of materials.

altM, which is based in Bengaluru, was founded in 2022 by Apoorv Garg and Yugal Raj Jain, who met while working at Tesla in the US.

Before altM, Apoorv served in supply chain and engineering leadership roles at Prometheus Fuels, Tesla, and Maruti Suzuki. He is an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley (M.Eng.) and Delhi College of Engineering (B.Tech.). Yugal earlier worked at Tesla in engineering leadership roles, managing several factory and product launches. He is an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.Eng.) and Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (B.E.). The team also includes Dr. Harshad Velankar with over 20 years of academic and industrial experience across India, the US, and South Africa. He previously led bioprocess research at HPCL, with prior stints at Praj Industries and Reliance Life Sciences.

Apoorv Garg, CEO and Co-Founder at altM, said, “The scale-up of a technology from a laboratory bench to commercial production is not a trivial undertaking. Production scale-up is often the death valley for biotech startups. Our focus on go-to-market strategy, execution, and production scale-up will be the differentiator to most endeavors we see in the world of biomaterials today.”

Mark Kahn, Managing Partner at Omnivore, said, “With Apoorv and Yugal's background in manufacturing excellence, altM's entry into industrial alternative materials will hasten the global shift towards sustainability and circularity. Omnivore is very excited to be a part of their journey as we kick off our new fund.”

altM aims to develop and manufacture scalable biomaterials to help large industries reduce carbon footprints across their supply chains. The startup uses lignocellulosic agricultural residues as their raw material to produce advanced materials as alternatives to unsustainable incumbents. For more information, please visit https://www.altm.bio/.

About Omnivore

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

Agritech Robotics Startup TartanSense Raises $5 Mn in Series A from FMC, Omnivore, Blume Ventures

TartanSense Team

Agritech robotics startup TartanSense announced today that it has raised USD 5million in Series A funding. The round was led by FMC Ventures and Omnivore, with participation from existing investor Blume Ventures. This brings the total funds raised by the company to USD 7million, after raising a USD 2million Seed round in March 2019. TartanSense builds small agricultural robots, equipped with AI-assisted computer vision, to help small farms reduce their expenditures and improve their incomes.

TartanSense is helping smallholder farmers who struggle with low yields, primarily driven by two reasons - poor chemical spraying techniques and unreliable farm labour. TartanSense's robots are an affordable precision agriculture solution for all major farming activities - sowing, spraying, weeding, and harvesting - which simultaneously drive down cultivation costs while improving crop yields.

BladeRunner, TartanSense’s latest robot, can identify, precisely locate, and mechanically uproot undesirable weeds as well as spot spray on the desired crop - reducing chemical usage by 45% as well as increasing weeding efficiency by 7 times. The future of agriculture is this combination of machine learning software and frugal hardware, helping farmers move from farm-level decision making to plant-level decision making.

Bladerunner

 
Based in Bangalore, TartanSense was originally founded in 2015 by Jaisimha Rao, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University who returned to India after working as a quant on Wall Street. He soon assembled a core team of Carnegie Mellon alumni with rich experience in robotics, computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering. The Carnegie Mellon linkage at TartanSense even extends to the company name since students and alumni of CMU are referred to as Tartans.

Jaisimha Rao, Founder, TartanSense, said --

Our mission is to make smallholder farmers wealthier by shipping monetizable robots. TartanSense will have the world’s largest fleet of agriculture robots in the next 18 months. We are grateful to have amazing investors like FMC Ventures, Omnivore, and Blume Ventures backing us in our passion to empower farmers.

Amar Singh, Managing Director at FMC Ventures, remarked, “TartanSense is a pioneer in ground-based precision spraying in India. With growers’ interest in mind, it has developed a unique, low-cost precision application technology with a very high level of accuracy. FMC Ventures is excited to support TartanSense as they combine artificial intelligence and robotics to improve how growers apply crop inputs.”

Mark Kahn, Managing Partner at Omnivore, observed, “TartanSense’s innovation in precision agritech can accelerate the transformation of Indian agriculture. We were privileged to be one of the first institutional investors in TartanSense and remain so as the startup reaches new milestones.”

Karthik B Reddy, Managing Partner, Blume Ventures, said, “Jaisimha and team TartanSense have been committed to solve large scale agri problems for farmers since we first met 3 years ago. By building one of the most robust computer-vision led weeding technologies for Indian conditions, we are excited to invest further. We believe TartanSense will reach many corners of global farming and will best solve for several precision farming use cases”.

India is the largest grower of cotton in the world, with 33 million acres under cultivation and an average weeding spend of $100 per acre. The market potential only for weeding in cotton is over 3 billion USD annually. TartanSense aims to focus on cotton as well as several other crops with high cost of weeding.

TartanSense builds small agricultural robots, equipped with AI-assisted computer vision, to help small farms reduce their expenditures and improve their incomes. For further information on TartanSense, please visit: http://www.tartansense.com

FMC Ventures, the venture capital arm of FMC Corporation, invests in startups and early-stage companies that are developing and applying emerging technologies in the agricultural industry. For further information on FMC Ventures, please visit: https://www.fmc.com/en/fmc-ventures

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

Blume is an early-stage venture fund that backs startups with both funding as well as active mentoring. For further information on Blume Ventures, please visit: https://blume.vc

Omnivore launches The Future of Indian Agriculture and Food Systems: Vision 2030 Report

Omnivore, India’s leading agritech venture capital firm, today launched its report on The Future of Indian Agriculture and Food Systems: Vision 2030. The report, a bold vision for agritech, explores how new technologies, demographic trends, and climate change will impact Indian agriculture and food systems over the next decade.

The report highlights eight key trends, as detailed below, that will drive the future of agriculture in India, with the critical caveat that climate change could negate this positive direction if not reckoned with:

• Precision agriculture and automation creating a “farm of one”
• Biotechnology will produce tastier, more nutritious, and eco-friendly crops
• Farms & farmers will be connected, digitized, and smart
• Farmer-consumer intimacy will improve value for both
• Majority of rural jobs will be of higher value and non-agro
• More fresh greens, harvested and delivered, on-demand
• Diversity, quality, and sustainability of food sources will increase
• Food will increasingly (and scientifically) replace medicine

The report points out the need for investment in horticulture, dairy, poultry, aquaculture, and food processing. It anticipates a future with significant advances in farm mechanization and automation, including farm robots taking over labor intensive tasks and reducing drudgery. The report further notes that India’s agricultural workforce in the future will be smaller, younger, and more gender diverse, and will move towards higher productivity jobs. Beyond encouraging more womenpreneurs, the rural non-farm economy will become actively digitized, stimulating a mass entrepreneurship movement around agricultural technologies.

Another striking trend that the report points out is Khet to Kirana: the increased demand for traceability and transparency in the food supply chain for both the farmer and the consumer. With middle class driving consumption, the growing concern of food hygiene, nutrition, and sustainability will increase awareness about labels and food hygiene. Over 90% of kirana stores across the country will be digitized by 2025 and be linked to modern traceable logistics which will further benefit the transparency of supply chain between the farmer and consumer.

Commenting on the report, Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner, Omnivore said, “India’s agritech sector is witnessing a paradigm shift catalysed by digitisation and rural smartphone penetration. Spearheading this change are agritech startups who are driving a transformation in Indian agriculture towards profitability, resilience, nutrition, and sustainability. Our Vision 2030 report clearly shows that innovation, technology, and agritech entrepreneurship will deliver tremendous growth in the next decade.”

The Future of Indian Agriculture and Food Systems: Vision 2030 was built on the advice and inputs of a range of experts, entrepreneurs, and advisors in the agricultural ecosystem in India and abroad, who added practical knowledge and experience to statistical trends. This study was commissioned before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but many of the trends have been accelerated by the pandemic, particularly those associated with digitalization, food safety, and traceability. Fundamentally, Omnivore has a philosophy of optimism for the future, and belief in the importance of disruption of the status quo. Authored by Umang Prabhakar (previously with Dalberg) and Subinder Khurana (a Venture Partner at Omnivore based in Delhi), the entire Omnivore team helped brainstorm ideas and offered support throughout the study.

About Omnivore

Omnivore is a venture capital firm, based in India, that funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. Omnivore pioneered agritech investing in India, backing over 20 startups since 2011. Every day, Omnivore portfolio companies drive agricultural prosperity and transform food systems across India, making farming more profitable, resilient, and sustainable. Omnivore’s current agritech investment themes include Farmer Platforms, Precision Agriculture, Rural Fintech, B2B Agri Marketplaces, Innovative Foods, Agribusiness SaaS, Post-Harvest Technologies, Agri Biotech, and Farm to Consumer (F2C) Brands.

B2B Food Commodity Marketplace TechnifyBiz Raises $2 Mn Seed Funding from Omnivore and Insitor

TechnifyBiz announced today that it has raised over USD 2 million (INR 14 crore) in Seed funding from Omnivore and the Insitor Impact Asia Fund. TechnifyBiz is a digital B2B marketplace for non-perishable food commodities, including nuts, seeds, dry fruits, specialty grains, and honey.

Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur, co-founders of Razorpay, also invested in the round. Existing angel investors include R Narayan (Power2SME), Rajnish Gupta (Aakash Namkeen), and Indigram Labs, which have likewise served as mentors for the company.

Based in Delhi, TechnifyBiz was co-founded by Akash Sharma and Abhishek Agarwal shortly after graduating from IIT Delhi and IIT Roorkee, respectively. TechnifyBiz works closely with SME food processors and farmer groups on the supply side and wholesale buyers on the demand side. Suppliers benefit by increasing their overall value realization from more efficient processing and aggregated volumes, while customers benefit from transparent daily pricing, consistent quality, and faster delivery timelines.

Despite having never previously raised institutional capital, TechnifyBiz is tracking a monthly revenue run rate of INR 10 crore and will cross INR 75 crore of sales revenue in FY 2019-20, an increase of 5x from FY2018-19, when sales were INR 15 crore.

According to Akash Sharma, Co-Founder of TechnifyBiz, “There is massive unmet demand for high quality food commodities in India, which TechnifyBiz is helping to bridge by developing backend supply infrastructure and technology-enabled services.”

Abhishek Agarwal, Co-Founder of TechnifyBiz, noted, “We are thrilled to partner with Omnivore and Insitor. The current round of funding will help TechnifyBiz double our base of SME food processors and farmer groups across the country, and strengthen our supply clusters across Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jammu, and Orissa.”

Commenting on the transaction, Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner of Omnivore, said “We are very inspired by TechnifyBiz’s supplier focus, which is creating tremendous value for farmer groups and SME food processors. Omnivore is excited to support the TechnifyBiz team as they organize value chains in their targeted food commodities.”

Abhijit Nath, Country Manager of the Insitor Impact Asia Fund, likewise added, “We believe TechnifyBiz has the ability to create a scalable, high impact business that is focused on reducing inefficiencies in the agricultural supply chain. Insitor is very excited to partner in this journey, in what will be our first agricultural investment in India.”

About TechnifyBiz: TechnifyBiz is a digital B2B marketplace for non-perishable food commodities, including nuts, seeds, dry fruits, specialty grains, and honey. For further information on TechnifyBiz, please visit: http://technifybiz.com

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 Insitor: Insitor invests venture capital funding into start-ups throughout emerging and frontier Asian markets. We invest with the rigor and discipline of a for-profit venture capital fund with the expectation of maximizing social impact, while providing patient and responsible financial returns. For further information on Insitor, please visit: http://www.insitorpartners.com/

Aquaculture platform Aquaconnect Raises $1.1 Mn Seed Round from Omnivore and HATCH

Aquaconnect announced today that it has raised a seed round of USD 1.1 million from Omnivore and HATCH. Aquaconnect is an AI-enabled platform that integrates Asia’s leading network for aquaculture farmers with predictive SaaS tools for farm management, and an omnichannel marketplace.

Aquaconnect is currently focused on India’s US$ 7.1 billion aquaculture sector, which produces almost 700,000 tons of farmed shrimp annually, and has become the top global exporter in recent years. Prior to this seed round, Aquaconnect received angel funding from HATCH, the world’s leading aquaculture focused startup accelerator, after participating in HATCH’s inaugural cohort in Bergen, Norway. This is Omnivore’s second investment in an aquaculture startup, following Eruvaka from its first fund in 2013.

Based in Chennai, Aquaconnect was founded in 2017 by Rajamanohar “Raj” Somasundaram, Sanjai Kumar, and Shanmuga Sundara Raj. Raj is an IIT Kanpur alumnus, World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader, and serial entrepreneur, who previously founded Hexolabs, a mobile technology startup that operated across Asia and Africa. Sanjai is an experienced aquaculture farmer who pioneered Vannamei culture in Tamil Nadu, while Shanmugaraj previously worked in leadership roles across the insurance industry, with ICICI Prudential, Canara HSBC, and Kotak Life.



Currently, Aquaconnect has a network of over 3000 shrimp farmers across India and Indonesia, which it plans to rapidly expand across South and Southeast Asia. These farmers receive support via Aquaconnect’s mobile application, FarmMOJO, which uses AI and predictive analytics to help them increase farm revenues, minimize costs, and reduce risks through better disease management. Finally, Aquaconnect links their farmer network to an omnichannel marketplace, where they can transact with feed producers, laboratories, equipment manufacturers, hatcheries, processors, exporters, certification bodies, banks, and insurance companies.

With the current round of funding, Aquaconnect plans to accelerate the growth of its aquaculture farmer network, roll out deep tech improvements to FarmMOJO, launch new SaaS tools for the aquaculture ecosystem, and expand monetization across its omnichannel marketplace. Reihem Roy, who runs Omnivore’s Chennai office, will be joining Aquaconnect’s board to support the company’s growth strategy.

According to Raj Somasundaram, Co-Founder & CEO of Aquaconnect, “The funding will be used for team expansion, enhancing our AI-enabled platform offering, and increasing our omnichannel marketplace fulfilment capabilities. We aim to reach 15,000 shrimp and fish farmers across India and Indonesia by December 2020. Omnivore and HATCH understand aquaculture, so they are perfect investors for our first institutional funding round.”

Commenting on the transaction, Mark Kahn, Managing Partner of Omnivore, noted that, “Omnivore is thrilled to partner with Aquaconnect as they catalyze the Blue Revolution 2.0 in India and across Asia.

The Government of India is ramping up support for the aquaculture sector, carving out a separate Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying as well as launching the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY). We believe Raj and his team are building one of the most promising agritech startups globally, and we look forward to the exciting journey ahead.”

Carsten Krome, Managing Partner of HATCH, also noted, “Having closely worked with Raj and his team now for more than a year, we are absolutely confident that they can deliver on the sharp growth trajectory that we are sending them on with this capital injection.”

IC Universal Legal’s Chennai team, led by Sameena Chatrapathy, managed the transaction.

About Aquaconnect: 

Aquaconnect is an AI-enabled platform that integrates Asia’s leading network for aquaculture farmers with predictive SaaS tools for farm management, and an omnichannel marketplace. For further information on Aquaconnect, please visit: http://www.aquaconnect.blue

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://www.omnivore.vc

About HATCH: 

HATCH is the world's first sustainable aquaculture accelerator, which seeks to find, develop, and scale disruptive aquaculture startups. For further information on HATCH, please visit: http://www.hatch.blue

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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