AGRITECH The sunrise sector: 14 startups to watch out for in 2020

About 55% of India’s population depends on agriculture as its primary source of revenue. The sector contributes 18% to the national GDP. Furthermore, the export market for agriculture produce is huge, a staggering US$ 38.54 billion in FY 2019. We are also the biggest producer, consumer, and exporter of spices in the world. According to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), a cumulative Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflow of about US$ 9.08 billion was achieved between April 2000 to March 2019 in the agriculture sector alone. With major capital influx and huge gaps to be filled in the sector, it has recently seen numerous interventions by various stakeholders.

India accounts for more than 450+ start-ups in the agri-tech space, which translates that every 9th agri-tech startup in the world is an Indian one. This sector has not only has seen a rise in the number of emerging agri-tech start-ups but also a rise in the number of investors showcasing interest in the Indian agri-tech start-up scene globally. These start-ups attracted funding from top investors like Omnivore, Accel and Ankur Capital. Start-ups in the agri-tech sector raised nearly US$248 Mn until June 2019, as per a report by NASSCOM. The stakeholder system in this area is rapidly maturing, with farmers’ income multiplying manifold, while their adoption and acceptance grows simultaneously. Currently, about 25 Indian agri-tech start-ups have ventured in markets outside India.

Agritech companies are breathing new life into agriculture by finding new ways for farmers, animal agriculturalists, and food supply managers to go about their business with precision and efficiency.

Tessol | Thermal Energy Solutions

Founded in 2013, TESSOL (Thermal Energy Service Solutions Pvt Ltd) is a unique innovation-driven venture focused on solving the temperature-controlled food and pharma distribution problem in India. Over the last 5 years, with a proven technology edge and execution capability, TESSOL has positioned itself as a pioneer in the cold chain space and is currently a leading supplier of last mile solutions to the e-commerce segment.

CropIn | Farm Management Solutions

CropIn offers farm management solutions for the agricultural sector. Its offerings are Smartfarm which is a complete farm management solution, Smart risk for risk mitigation and forecasting, warehouse for traceability and compliance, and Smartsales for CRM and input channel management. It serves to the farming companies, agri-input companies, crop insurance providers, seed production companies, government, and advisories.

NEERx Technovation |  Sensors for real-time farm microclimate information

Nikita Tiwari is the Co-founder of NEERx Technovation, an agritech startup that develops sensors to help farmers get real-time data about farming conditions. The Ahmedabad-based startup has developed a sensor called ‘SHOOL: Smart sensor for Hydrology and Land application’, which provides accurate and real-time farm microclimate information using dielectric technology. This can help prevent pest infestation, improve water and fertiliser retention, drought prevention, and soil degradation. It also helps in water harvesting, reduces agri-input cost, and improves productivity. 

Smartbell | Wearable Tech Cattle Tracking

Founded in 2016, its wearable tech provides farmers with information about cattle’s activity, temperature, feeding habits, and their surroundings such as air quality and humidity. Its intelligence platform analyses the data to pick up early signs of disease, days before any visible symptoms can be observed, to help farmers get early medical assistance. 

Bijak|Online B2B marketplace to trade agriculture commodities

Bijak is an online B2B marketplace to trade agriculture commodities. It allows producers to sell their produce at real-time prices to wholesalers and retailers. It also provides loans for buyers and working capital for producers. Additionally, provides aggregated logistics services to eliminate wastage and avoid partial truck loads. Other features include digitizing transactions with an electronic book-keeping feature, advance payments, and individual rating system.

Jumbotail|Online B2B platform for packaged food, fruits & vegetables

Jumbotail is an online platform for wholesale buyers/retailers to procure their groceries, fruits, and vegetables from producers/manufacturers. The product is yet to be launched, claims to be developing the backend operations, sourcing, and logistics. Raised $2M from Nexus VP in its seed round of funding in Jul’16 and raised another $8.5M in its Series A round of funding in Jul’17 from Nexus VP and Kalaari Capital

AgNext|Instant analysis of food traced back to its source

Quality, safety, and traceability of food produce is of critical importance for agrieconomy stakeholders. Founded by Taranjeet Bhamra in 2016, AgNext focusses on solving these efficiency challenges in agriculture and the food value chain deploying its Qualix Platform. The platform uses computer vision, spectroscopy and IoT devices merged with AI-based data sciences for instant analysis of physical, chemical and ambient quality of food traced back to the source. Plantation companies, agricultural processors and other agriculture food chain participants form the customer base for AgNext.

Aquaconnect|AI and Remote-sensing to assist Fisheries

Aquaconnect is a startup uses AI and remote-sensing technologies to assist shrimp and fish farmers to improve efficiency and farming revenue. FarmMOJO, its AI-enabled mobile app, acts as a farm advisor and provides context-specific suggestions and alerts to farmers in multiple languages. This helps farmers make decisions to improve water quality parameters, feed consumption pattern and health management of the inventory.

Fasal|Enabling Precision Agriculture with Technology

Hardware and IoT are disrupting farm operations and agritech in India just as much as manufacturing and industry. Fasal’s AI-powered IoT-SaaS platform for horticulture captures real-time data on growing conditions from on-farm sensors and delivers farm-specific, crop-specific actionable advisories to farmers via mobile in regional languages.

Gramophone|Mobile Commerce To Sell Inputs

Employing a different approach to input supply for farmers, Gramophone takes an advisory and mobile commerce route to sell seeds, crop protection and nutrition products directly to farmers. Gramophone also allows for farmers to talk to agritech and agriculture experts for solutions and product consultation. The Gramophone Farmer app has agronomy, community and agricultural input retail as the key components. To provide scalable, personalised crop care solutions to the farmers, the app has a digitised database of more than 30 crops with the agro-climatic conditions in which they grow, duration of varieties and more. The app also contains information on pest and disease problems and soil nutrition.

IntelloLabs|AI-based Image Processing To Assess Food Quality

AI is changing most sectors of the economy and Intello Labs uses AI-based image processing to assess food quality at the source. The agritech startup works on a B2B model with food growers, processors, retailers, food service companies and other stakeholders in the Indian food supply and production chain. Intello Labs charge customers a monthly fee depending on the number of images processed.

O4S|Original4Sure a SaaS Platform

O4S, also known as Original4Sure is a SaaS platform that helps brands streamline the downstream supply chain by increasing supply chain visibility. The Gurugram-based startup helps brands by providing them with services such as returns management. The focus of these businesses then becomes finding an easily scalable solution whereas, for bigger brands who are into multiple products, the recurring problem is of brand counterfeiting which leads to loss for the farmers and also brand dilution.

Licious|Online platform for delivery of meat and seafood

Licious delivers hand-cut individually vacuum-sealed, packed fresh, marinated or cold cut meat. Has a central processing plant and a number of storage units in multiple cities. Works on a zero inventory model. It also offers a subscription model that allows pre-set delivery dates and products. Its app is available on Android and iOS platforms.

Ninjacart | Agri-Marketing Platform

Ninjacart is India’s Largest agri marketing platform, solving one of the toughest supply chain problems through technology. They connect vegetables and fruits farmers directly with businesses. The startup has been funded by Accel Partners, Nandan Nilekani, Mistletoe(Japan) & Qualcomm Ventures.