Sowing Seeds Of Good Harvest Days
Arya.ag, a post-harvest integrated agri-commerce platform, is creating equitable value chains in agriculture
By Shrabona Ghosh •
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With an eye to democratize markets for farmers, Arya.ag, a post-harvest integrated agri-commerce platform, was born.
"Prior to embarking on our entrepreneurial journey, my co-promoters and I were part of the agri-banking division. We learnt that banks mainly served larger intermediaries and traders in tertiary agricultural markets and the true benefits of banking services were yet to reach producers in the hinterland. We started our journey with the vision of democratizing markets for farmers and their institutions by giving them the power to decide when and whom to sell their produce. It is with this objective that we approached the JM Baxi Group to take over Arya from them in 2013. With the unstinting support from the JM Baxi Group and our investors, we have been able to establish Arya.ag as India's first post-harvest integrated agri-commerce platform," said Prasanna Rao, MD and co-founder of Arya.ag
The company is driven by the objective to create equitable value chains in agriculture. "The small farmers or farmer producer organizations (FPOs) needed a storage solution at the farm gate with easy access to financial resources in the form of loans for liquidity-related considerations."
The platform recently raised $60 million in its Series C round. Earlier, in December 2020 it raised $21 million as part of Series B round. "In March 2020, we raised $6 million as part of pre-Series B round. Our investors include LightrockIndia,Quona Capital, Omnivore and Asia Impact SA."
Talking about distribution, he said, "Through our platform arya.ag, we provide assured supply visibility for agri-produce worth over $2.0 billion across 10,000 digitally identifiable warehouses spread across 425 districts in over 21 states of the country.The platform enables over $700 million of loans annually against this supply base through partnerships with more than 20 banks and financial institutions. We enable commerce of $300 million annually connecting the supply side of the agro-ecosystem with the demand side."
The agritech ecosystem in India has started to receive its share of limelight from VCs and other investors. "End-users including farmers, processors and corporations are migrating to new-age digital platform-based services offered by agritech players."
