Agri e-commerce startup BharatAgri raises Rs 35 crore in Series A round led by Arkam Ventures

Founding team, (left to right) Aman Verma, head of new initiatives; Tanmay Krishna, head of tech and product; Siddharth Dialani, CEO and Sai Gole, COO

BharatAgri, an advisory-led e-commerce platform for farmers, announced on October 19 that it has raised Series A funding of Rs 35 crore ($4.3 million) led by Arkam Ventures, India’s first early-stage venture fund dedicated to Middle-India startups. The funding marks Arkam’s third investment in the agri-tech space.

As per a press release, the round also saw participation from Capria Ventures and existing investors, India Quotient, 021 Capital, and Omnivore. The funds will be used to scale BharatAgri’s e-commerce platform into new geographies and strengthen its last-mile delivery. Rahul Chandra, MD, Arkam Ventures will join the board of BharatAgri.

Founded by IIT Madras Alumni, Siddharth Dialani and Sai Gole, BharatAgri uses smart farming advisory for farmers to identify and order the best input products specific to their farming needs. The company has built prediction algorithms that provide advisory customised to crops, regions and climatic changes. Farmers can access this custom advisory that would help them increase farm yield, lower input costs and labour effort. Its ecommerce platform offers 10000+ agricultural products such as fertilisers, seeds, pesticides, insecticides, and farming equipment, among others and is delivered pan-India across 20,000 + pin codes.

Arkam Ventures is also an investor in Jai Kisan, one of India’s fastest-growing rural fintech platforms for farmers and retailers, and Jumbotail, India’s leading B2B food & grocery marketplace and retail platform.

Announcing the latest fundraising from Arkam, Siddharth Dialani, Cofounder, BharatAgri said, “In the next 3 years, 50 million+ farmers will use the internet for the first time and we want BharatAgri to be their bridge to the digital era of agri that is now dawning.  With 10L+ unique monthly users, 10k+ SKUs, 100+ marketplace partners and 20k+ serviceable pin codes, BharatAgri is making a significant impact on farmers' lives. With this investment, BharatAgri aims to further strengthen its rural supply chain, expand the user base and become the largest and the de facto e-commerce platform for farmers.”

Talking about the latest investment in BharatAgri, Rahul Chandra, MD, Arkam Ventures said, “Agri inputs is a $44 billion market in India and suffers from stock-outs, misinformation and non-scientific usage behaviour… The rural infrastructure in India is rapidly modernising with the last mile touching more and more villages, and farmers are increasingly trusting digital knowledge sources. The credible advice from BharatAgri helps bridge the trust deficit that accompanies input purchasing and promises to open a digital channel for thousands of new products and brands that farmers seek to buy.”

The seamless integration of advisory and e-commerce has enabled BharatAgri to increase farmers’ production by 30 percent, reduce costs by 10 percent and improve their earnings by 100 percent. In the next 12 months, BharatAgri aims to solidify its distribution network, bolster its last-mile delivery and improve its TAT. On the back of the growing demand, it is looking to open multiple warehouses across different regions.