Agri Supply Chain Startup Onato Raises $2.2 Mn Seed Round Led By Vertex Ventures And Omnivore Onato plans to use funds for talent acquisition and scaling up operations
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Bengaluru-based Onato, a data-driven B2B platform for fresh produce, emerged out of stealth and announced a seed financing of USD 2.2 million. This round was led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India with participation from Omnivore.
Onato is building a technology platform for India's more than $100 billion fruits and vegetables (F&V) industry.
"More than 60 per cent population of India is dependent on agriculture and yet tech penetration in the agri-supply chain is quite low. Decision-making is mostly intuition driven which leads to a lot of volatility in prices and wastage. I believe bringing in transparency in price discovery and fulfillment through technology will play a crucial role in streamlining the supply chains and decision making," said VedantKatiyar, founder, Onato.
The startup plans to use this funding for talent acquisition and scaling up its operations.
"We envision that by harnessing the power of on-ground data, we can create a revolutionary change in the existing agri value-chain which will result in better value distribution for all participants from farmer up to end-consumer," shared Ashish Jindal, co-founder, Onato.
"Most of India's fresh supply moves through inefficient supply chains due to fragmented volumes, arbitrary pricing and complex credit management. Onato aims to solve for these critical bottlenecks and we are excited to partner with Vedant and Ashish on their mission of bringing scalable disruption to the F&V supply chain in India," observed Kanika Mayar, executive director, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India.
"Onato's well-crafted digital intervention and robust fulfillment process are easing the burden of credit in the supply chain. The startup is also solving the issue of income instability in Indian agriculture that so often compels farmers to exit farming altogether," added Jinesh Shah, managing partner, Omnivore.
Despite its staggering size, the Indian F&V value chain is fraught with challenges. The ecosystem grapples with arbitrary price setting, unreliable payment schedules, and lack of access to real-time data between suppliers and the downstream market participants. Onato's platform connects various stakeholders directly and uses data from the demand and supply side to bring transparency in volume and pricing, ensure timely payments, and help customers access new business opportunities. This in turn drives better margins and allows small and medium participants to expand their business over time without deepening their credit burden.
