The pride of India lies in agriculture. The government constantly works for the upliftment of the agricultural sector in India. Taking a cue from the authorities, the last decade experienced a rush of startups trying to innovate and develop products, fertilizers, machinery, and irrigation systems for the benefit of our farming lands.
In their effort to create something worthwhile in the agricultural field, some startups have managed to carve a niche for themselves with their phenomenal and innovative developments. Here is a list of the Top 8 Agri Start-ups in India that have made headlines.
DeHaat
DeHaat is an important and fast-growing startup that has used technology intelligently for the upliftment of agriculture. It focuses on providing end-to-end solutions and services to the farming community. They are building AI-powered technologies to revolutionize the supply chain and productivity in the agricultural sector. Currently, they are operating in Odisha, West Bengal, UP, and Bihar.
They aspire to reach more than 5 million farmers in India by 2024. DeHaat is the brainchild of the alumni from IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, IIM Ahmedabad, and other topmost institutes in India. This self-funded startup has showcased a growth of 3 to 4x per annum. They believe in harvesting their true purpose, i.e., putting the needs of the farmer first and finding innovative ways to resolve farmer problems.
Ninjacart
Ninjacart is one of the leading startups investing their efforts in creating a tech-driven supply chain for fresh produce. It is India’s largest fresh produce supply chain company that aspires to solve this problem through technology. They develop in-house applications to connect producers directly with retailers, restaurants and other people in the food industry to avoid wastage and price hikes because of middlemen.
At present, their supply chain can transport 1400 tons of perishable food items directly from farms to food businesses, every day within 12 hours. The main problems farmers face today are price risk and information asymmetry about demand. Retailers face problems of low-quality produce and higher costs. To eliminate these drawbacks of the traditional supply chain, Ninjacart works on eliminating the intermediaries and presenting a direct Supply Chain using technology.
Aibono
Aibono is India’s first AI-produced Fresh Food Aggregator, leading the Seed-to-plate platform, which is the gen-next model that aligns Real-time Production with Real-time Consumption of perishable food products to avoid wastage and price disparities. They do that by using Predictive Analytics, seasonal harvesting, and precision farming.
The Seed-to-Plate continuum of Aibono will bring a massive change to the $250 billion fresh food category. This disruption is powered by 4.0 and delivers 2x yields, superior output control, and guaranteed income to small farmers while ensuring fresh and reliable produce to retailers and other people in the food businesses. They bagged the Economic Times Startup Award for Best Social Enterprise in 2017.
Crofarm
The Crofarmers are a capable team with the market, technology, and execution expertise who aspire to bring a revolution in the farming industry of India. Crofarm began as a small startup on a mission to do something meaningful and fundamental to change the lives of farmers and consumers at large.
Their mission is to increase the income of farmers and enable consumers to enjoy fresh produce. Crofarm works to build a demand-driven supply chain for fresh produce in India which is tech-enabled and ensures zero wastage. Crofarm has a simple working model based on Demand, On-Demand Harvesting, Fast Delivery, and ensuring the Best Price to Consumers/Businesses.
AgricxLab
AgricxLab provides the world’s most powerful AI-enabled solutions to empower your food businesses. Founded in 2016, this startup aspires to bring in some advancements in the agricultural ecosystem and remove inefficiencies in between. The mission of this startup is to use new technologies such as machine learning, agritech, and SaaS for the agricultural sector.
AgricxLab is the first-of-its-kind AI-enabled SaaS platform for companies involved in the business of producing, storing, trading, processing, transporting, or financing of agricultural produce/commodities.
Fasal
Fasal is a startup that began with the simple idea of removing insecurities and guesswork from the farming profession. Farmers face major losses when their harvesting decisions do not prove fruitful. Most of their decisions are based on guesswork and suggestions from their elders. But the current demand chain, weather conditions, soil conditions, and price hikes affect their decisions and outputs largely.
Fasal works to remove these uncertainties from a farmer’s life. It incorporated data-driven farming to help numerous farmers reduce the cost of cultivation and improve the quality of produce. Founded in 2018, Fasal uses AI-powered technology for horticulture, crop farming, and harvesting. Their vision is to focus and educate farmers on precision farming to reduce costs and wastage.
Ergos
Ergos is a small startup in Bihar that has managed to create headlines with its notable work in the farming sector. It boasts of a unique Agri-tech landscape model where they are working on building a ‘Grainbank’, that is providing doorstep access to small farmers. This ‘Grainbank’ will enable farmers to convert their grains into tradable digital assets, and get credit against them. They can use these funds for better grains.
The ‘Grainbank’ model also offers the farmers the option to withdraw a bag of grains. This ensures better grain quality and converts the grains stored into fungible tokens. Through proper storage, the risk of grain loss is eliminated. These and many more benefits are ensured through this unique landscape model. Ergos envisions offering better quality solutions to the farmers through the use of technology.
Cropin
Cropin is a startup based on agricultural-ecosystem intelligence. It encourages its stakeholders and financial service providers to entrust digital strategy across various agricultural operations. Cropin envisions making every farm in India traceable and maximizing per-acre value.
It uses cutting-edge technology like AI, remote sensing, and machine learning to create an interconnected data platform. It encourages organizations to digitize their operations from farm to fork and leverage the data to make intelligent decisions. Having partnered with 250+ organizations involved in the farming or food sector, Cropin has managed to enrich the lives of 7 million farmers. The geo-location agnostic and crop solutions offered by Cropin are available in a plug-and-play model.
