Agri-tech firm Arya has raised $60 million in a mix of equity and debt round. While the equity round was led by Asia Impact SA, Lightrock India and Quona Capital, the debt component came from US International Development Finance Corporation, besides other investors.
While $44 million came in for equity, the rest $16 million were raised as debt, Anand Chandra, co-founder, Arya.ag told Moneycontrol in an interaction.
The company which connects sellers and buyers of agriproduce plans to use this capital in expanding warehouses, strengthening employee base and enhancing technology.
"On the commerce and the market linkage platform, we are at a $200 million ARR and we endeavour to take it to a $1 billion mark in the next 12 months," said Chandra adding that the company will hire 300 more employees with at least 50 dedicated to the technology segment in the coming months.
Founded in 2013 by Chattanathan Devarajan, Prasanna Rao and Chandra enables farmgate storage and provides warehousing and finance solutions to farmers among other things. The company soon plans to start offering logistics and insurance as well.
It currently manages over 3 million metric tons of agri commodities across 21 states in India and claims to be facilitating finance of over $700 million annually.
It lends through its own NBFC as well as by aggregating the products of different financial institutions.
"Around Rs 20-30 lakh we lend through our NBFC and Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1 crore through the banks," said Chandra.
Its existing reach spans over 650,000 farmers through partnerships with 500 farmer producer organisation schemes.
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"We believe long-term structural changes can be accelerated by introducing more transparency. Arya’s unparalleled reach across rural India, coupled with its tech-driven integrated service model, has made it one of the fastest-growing agri-commerce platforms in India. Arya is successfully bridging the trust gap in post-harvest agri transactions through complete transparency and assurance on quality, quantity and payments," said Varun Malhotra, partner at Quona Capital.
The company last raised $21 million in December 2020.
Asia Impact SA was advised by Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas. Setuka Partners was the advisor on debt finance from US International Development Finance Corporation.
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