JAIPUR, 30 October 2020: Freshokartz Agri Products Pvt. Limited, a premier Agri-tech startup has received USD $1.4 Million (INR 10 Crore) pre-series A funding from Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) and AWE (Achieving Women Equity) Funds to finance its rapid technology rollout while scaling its operations as a provider of premier technology-enabled omnichannel supply chain optimizing solutions along with agronomy advisory and output linkages.
Speaking on the success of Freshokartz latest round of funding, Rajendra Lora, Founder noted, “Our company has witnessed significant growth even during COVID-19 crisis, which is driven by our team’s differentiated understanding of India’s agricultural supply chain, its markets and its participants given our personal farming backgrounds. This helps us execute effectively as an effective and integrated agriculture supply chain company. Getting RVCF and AWE Funds’ investment support will help expand and consolidate our footprint not only in Rajasthan but also in neighboring states.”
Chandrakanta, Co-founder remarked, “We are especially delighted with the powerful combination of our two investors who bring significant synergistic value to our company in helping us develop our organization with more than just capital. The vast experiences of the two teams, their associated networks and their focus on not only commercial returns but also a genuine interest in improvement in lives of farmers, especially women farmers, has made this a very valuable partnership.”
Freshokartz is operating 40 physical centers in Rajasthan and working with more than 90,000 farmers. Freshokartz has target to reach 1 Million farmers in next 12-15 months.
Freshokartz is working with more than 100 Agri Inputs companies including UPL, Chambal Fertilizers to provide best Agri inputs to farmer’s doorsteps. Freshokartz has developed mobile app for farmers where farmers can place order from nearby centers. The business model has been built bottom-up where most of the team comes from farming background and are providing solutions to the farm level pain points of the farmers.
Freshokartz provides soil-based crop and fertilisers recommendation to farmers through Agronomist and through call center and has opened network or digitalized physical agri kiosks at the village level and deliver Agri advisory, inputs and collect farmer output through centers or their doorsteps.
Freshokartz also facilitates farmers in getting financial/insurance through partners. Freshokartz is building a complete hybrid model for farmers where farmers get Pre and Postharvest agriculture-related services.
Freshokartz will be using these funds for expansion within Rajasthan and other nearby states like Haryana, M.P, U.P and other northern states of India. The Funds will be used in capacity building, Tech development and geographic expansion.
Gaurav Chowdhry, VP at RVCF said, “It is pertinent for us to look at startups which can sustain in these challenging times by differentiation and innovation. By focusing on farmer’s multitude of farming needs, Freshokartz is providing full stack solutions for better farm outcomes. The team has strong execution capabilities and expect to see significant growth in the coming years. We are happy to partner with Freshokartz in the journey.”
Seema Chaturvedi, Founder & Managing Partner of AWE Funds observed, “At AWE Funds, given our team’s deep agri expertise, we believe that the agri-tech industry is poised for rapid growth. Furthermore, we found FAPL’s focus on appropriate and adaptable farmer-centric technology especially on the downstream input side of the supply chain to be a very compelling investment thesis. Added to the fact that the main beneficiaries are marginal farmers of whom 70 percent are women, this investment is very aligned with our gender lens focused investment mandate in Achieving Women Equity.”
AWE Funds is an early growth equity fund investing in innovative enterprises to promote gender equity. We use AWE Funds’ proprietary gender lens to invest pre-series A, Series A rounds in women owned, led or influenced businesses in AgriTech, HealthTech, EdTech, Finatech & Sustainability (Cleantech & Water) business in India.
Image credit: Just Dial
