AGRIM secures USD 10m from Kalaari, Axis Bank to serve USD 50bn in Agri-Inputs market

MUMBAI, 19 February 2022: AGRIM has raised USD 10m in Series A funding. Kalaari Capital led the round along with Omnivore, India Quotient, and Accion Venture Lab. As part of its Bharat Banking initiative, Axis Bank participated in the round.

An agritech startup plans to use this funding to acquire talent, develop embedded fintech products, and scale operations. The startup expects to clock annualised gross merchandising value (GMV) of USD 100m in 2022.

It further targets to increase stock-keeping units by 10x, to reach 250,000 SKUs across agri-input categories, providing retailers with a vast selection on the platform. AGRIM plans to launch financial services soon to ease the burden of retailers and manufacturers dealing with steep working capital requirements.

AGRIM was founded in April 2020 by serial entrepreneurs Mukul Garg and Avi Jain, both of whom attended IIT Kharagpur. The startup said it is hiring for its financial services team, from various fintech unicorns.

Mukul Garg, cofounder and CEO of AGRIM, said, “In the last 15 months, we have achieved product-market fit. This investment will help us expand exponentially into new categories and geographies. Given the unit-level profitability, most funds will be used to bring rock stars onboard and launch embedded fintech services for our retailers.”

The startup stated that it is building the largest digital platform for India’s USD 50bn agri-inputs industry by connecting retailers directly with manufacturers and providing all parties with solutions for distribution, credit, logistics, and marketing. It works across agri-input categories, including seeds, fertilizer, crop protection, animal nutrition, and farm implements.

AGRIM’s offerings come into play where retailers grapple with a limited assortment of goods, poor availability, opaque pricing, spurious product quality, and the high cost of working capital.

Likewise, agri-input manufacturers struggle to grow their businesses, increase the penetration of their products across geographies, manage working capital, and optimise logistics.

AGRIM's digital platform cuts across the existing multi-tier distribution system and delivers quality inputs via efficient fulfillment services. The company said it currently works across 500 districts, with more than 2,500 manufacturers and 170,000 retailers on the platform.

“We, at Kalaari, are excited about playing a role in AGRIM’s vision of transforming the agri-input retail market in India. AGRIM’s goal of building a strong, tech-enabled ecosystem for small retailers of crucial agricultural supplies can transform the way agri-inputs are sourced across the country while ensuring better quality and access to products for agri-based communities” said Vamshi Krishna Reddy, partner at Kalaari Capital.

In March 2021 AGRIM had raised over USD 2m (INR 15 crore) in Seed round funding. Whereas, last month we saw agritech startup Arya.Ag receiving USD 60m Series C funding in a mix of equity and debt financing led by Asia Impact SA, Lightrock India and Quona Capital. It also received debt financing from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) among others.

Image credit: wur.nl

Ravi Kumar: Reporting and writing news stories on agriculture and allied sectors since 2020 prior to this worked as sub-editor for IIICorp for five years.