Microsoft announces program to accelerate growth of agritech startups in India

NEW DELHI, 8 June 2020: Microsoft announced the launch of a program for agritech startups in India that are committed to driving transformation in agriculture.

The Microsoft for Agritech Startups program is designed to help startups build industry-specific solutions, scale and grow with access to deep technology, business and marketing resources.

Agritech startups in India are transforming agriculture by developing innovative digital solutions to maximize productivity, improve market linkages, increase supply chain efficiency and provide greater access to inputs for agri-businesses.

Azure FarmBeats

In its efforts to bolster the country’s startup ecosystem, this program offers the best-in-class tech and business enablement resources to help agritech startups innovate and scale fast. Startups can also get access to Azure FarmBeats, which can help them focus on core value-adds instead of the undifferentiated heavy lifting of data engineering.

Available on the Azure Marketplace, Azure FarmBeats enables aggregation of agricultural datasets across providers and generation of actionable insights by building AI/ML models based on fused datasets.

Commenting on this, Microsoft India director of Startup Ecosystem Sangeeta Bavi said, “Sustainable agricultural technology can transform the global food landscape. Agritech startup innovations are addressing some of our key challenges connected to agriculture and food production. The Microsoft for Agritech Startups program is among the early steps in our journey towards empowering these startups in India and transforming global agricultural practices.”

Spread across three tiers

 All startups: Qualified Seed to Series C startups can boost their businesses with Azure benefits (including free credits), unlimited technical support and help with Azure Marketplace onboarding

Co-sell startups: Startups with enterprise-ready solutions can scale quickly with joint go-to-market strategies, technical support and new sales opportunities with Microsoft’s partner ecosystem

Co-create solutions: Startups that are looking to create digital agriculture solutions have the opportunity to co-build customized solutions with Azure FarmBeats without investing in deep data engineering resources. Using Azure FarmBeats, startups can acquire, aggregate and process agricultural data and rapidly develop their own AI/ML models

Bringing together startups, corporates, industry bodies, governments and venture capital firms, the program aims to create a shared platform for learning and innovation.

With its strong focus on startups, advanced technology resources and a rapidly growing partner ecosystem, Microsoft is uniquely positioned to help agritech startups build solutions, scale across global markets, and grow with industry-leading partnerships.