Kota-based Agritech startup Eeki Foods said on April 19 that it had raised $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Venture Capital firm, General Catalyst (GC). Key investors participating in the round include Avaana Capital, Better Capital, and Irving Fain, CEO and Founder of Bowery Farming, among others.
The Co-Founders of Eeki Foods, Abhay Singh and Amit Kumar, informed that the freshly-raised fund would be used to scale Eeki to hundreds of acres. They said that the company's focus would be on building the team, technology, and organisational scale in the coming year.
Founded in 2018, Eekifoods is led by Singh, as the Chief Executive Officer, and Kumar who is the Chief Operating Officer. The company aims to make farming sustainable and claims to have developed large-scale, climate-proof farms equipped with proprietary growing chambers that allow low-cost production of high-quality vegetables.
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“We are actively looking to establish partnerships with corporates, HNIs, and other retail farmers in Rajasthan, Delhi-NCR, and Maharashtra to build such farms across the country,” added Singh and Kumar.
Eeki Foods also claimed that its technology enables the farm’s climate to be controlled, allowing vegetables to be grown all year without being affected by seasonal variations. Their patent-pending IoT control mechanism deployed on farms makes operations less reliant on manual labour, added the Agritech startup.
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“Eeki’s innovative, India-centric growing system as well as its unique business model are making a meaningful difference in the lives and livelihoods of farming partners and consumers,” said Anand Chandrasekaran, Partner at General Catalyst. He added, “Amit and Abhay are building an important company with Responsible Innovation at the core.”
Anjali Bansal of Avaana Capital, said, “We, at Avaana, are delighted to be early believers and support Eeki’s vision to create climate-resilient agricultural systems. Eeki’s patent-pending technology revolutionises controlled environment agriculture, producing high-quality staple vegetables at affordable prices.”
Earlier in February 2022, Avaana Capital had led another funding round, where Eeki Foods had raised $2 million from a clutch of investors to expand its business and upgrade technology. Existing investors of the company include Ramakant Sharma, Founder of Livspace, Harsh Shah, Founder of Fynd, and Kunal Shah, Founder of CRED, among others.
The new Series A funding round also saw participation from investors like Subbu Palaniappan, Director, and Head of Amazon Prime India, Srinivas Narayanan, former Vice President of Engineering at Facebook, Akhil Gupta, and Amit Kumar Agarwal, Co-founders of NoBroker.com.
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