MUMBAI, 05 March 2021: AGRIM, a B2B marketplace for agri-inputs, came out of stealth mode today to announce that it had raised over USD 2 million (INR 15 crore) in Seed round funding back in May 2020 and had scaled operations substantially over the past ten months.
The Seed round was led by Omnivore, India Quotient, and Accion Venture Lab, but also saw participation from unicorn founders Rajesh Yabaji.
AGRIM is building a digital marketplace for India’s USD 50 billion agri-inputs industry, by connecting rural retailers directly with manufacturers and providing value-added solutions for distribution, logistics, marketing, and credit. India has over 1 million agri-input retailers serving 130 million farmers.
Despite their critical role in the ecosystem, agri-input retailers often struggle with limited assortment of goods, poor availability, opaque pricing, spurious product quality, and the high cost of working capital. AGRIM’s marketplace is solving these issues via a simple digital interface, a robust fulfilment process, and embedded fintech solutions.
Based in Gurgaon, AGRIM was founded in April 2020 by IIT Kharagpur alumni Mukul Garg and Avi Jain. Prior to AGRIM, Mukul was Head of Growth at Blackbuck, India's largest trucking platform, where he launched their on-demand trucking marketplace and scaled multiple other business lines.
He earlier co-founded Tripigator, a travel tech startup focused on personalized travel. Mukul hails from Haryana where his family has run an agri-inputs business for almost three decades.
As for Avi, after graduating from IIT, went on to IIM Calcutta for his MBA. He spent six years with Nomura’s investment banking team across London and New York and then returned to India where he co-founded Taazu, a corporate travel platform, which he exited to a global competitor in 2019.
Commenting on the funding round, Mukul Garg, Co-Founder of AGRIM, noted, “I have seen the agri-inputs supply chain and its challenges firsthand through our family business. We believe AGRIM, a technology and data-driven marketplace, will have a massive impact on the overall agriculture landscape in India in the coming decade”
According to Mark Kahn, Managing Partner of Omnivore, “We are thrilled to partner with Mukul and Avi on AGRIM’s journey to transform agri-inputs distribution in India. At Omnivore, we believe digital marketplaces like AGRIM will create tremendous value for India’s agricultural economy and its 130 million smallholder farmers.”
Madhukar Sinha, Partner at India Quotient added that, “Supply chain for agri-input has always been opaque and broken. Digital supply chain can unlock huge value for both manufacturers and retailers. We are excited to back AGRIM to take a stab at this large market.”
Finally, as per Amee Parbhoo, Director of Investments for Accion Venture Lab, “Agricultural retailers are a critical link in the agricultural value chain that supports farmers’ livelihoods. We are excited about AGRIM's platform which brings transparency to product discovery and delivery and ultimately seeks to embed affordable financial services for these MSME customers. We are thrilled to add AGRIM to the Venture Lab portfolio.”
Photo caption: Founders at AGRIM, Avi Jain (L) and Mukul Garg (R)
