AGRIM Raises $10 Million In Series A Round Led By Kalaari Capital Funds will be utilised to acquire talent, embed fintech product development, and scale up operations
By Saptak Bardhan •
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B2B platform for agricultural inputs, AGRIM on Thursday announced to have raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Kalaari Capital, with participation from existing investors Omnivore, India Quotient and Accion Venture Labs. Axis Bank also joined the round as part of their Bharat Banking initiative. Funds will be utilised to acquire talent, embed fintech product development and scale up operations.
"This investment will help us expand exponentially into new categories and geographies. Given the unit-level profitability, most funds will be used to bring rock stars onboard and launch embedded fintech services for our retailers," said Mukul Garg, co-founder and CEO, AGRIM.
Rural agricultural input retailers grapple with a limited assortment of goods, poor availability, opaque pricing, spurious product quality and the high cost of working capital. At the same time, agricultural input manufacturers struggle to grow their businesses, increase the penetration of their products across geographies, manage working capital and optimize logistics, said the company in a statement.
"The founding team's deep expertise and clarity of thought, along with their strong focus on unit-level profitability, resonated with us. AGRIM's goal of building a strong, tech-enabled ecosystem for small retailers of crucial agricultural supplies can transform the way agricultural inputs are sourced across the country while ensuring better quality and access to products for agri-based communities," said Vamsi Krishna Reddy, partner, Kalaari Capital.
Founded in April 2020 by serial entrepreneurs and IIT Kharagpur alumni Mukul Garg and Avi Jain, AGRIM works across agricultural input categories, including seeds, fertilizer, crop protection, animal nutrition and farm implements. The startup works across 500 districts, with over 2,500 manufacturers and 170,000 retailers on the platform. AGRIM expects to clock annualized gross merchandising value of $100 million in 2022 and plans to increase stock-keeping units by 10 times to reach 250,000 stock keeping units across agricultural input categories, providing retailers with a vast selection on the platform.
