Shivrai Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates agriculture enterprise resource planning platform FarmERP, has raised Series A funding from software company TechnoGen IT Services India Pvt. Ltd.
Santosh Shinde, co-founder and chief operating officer at FarmERP, said in a statement the company will use the funds to enter new markets to solve the problems agriculture faces. Currently, the company has a presence in about 25 countries, including in Europe, North America and Africa.
Pune-headquartered FarmERP will also use the money to build solutions that can help users limit risks that the agriculture sector faces due to climate change.
The company didn’t disclose the amount it raised from TechnoGen, which has offices in Mumbai and Singapore.
FarmERP was founded as Farm Management Software by Shinde and Sanjay Borkar in 2001, and renamed itself in 2007. It services sub-industries in the agriculture sector such as plantation farming, contract farming, bio-technology companies, research and development organisations, and government institutions. The company aims to help stakeholders in the agriculture industry to improve yields, efficiency and profitability.
Deals in the agri-tech segment
The agriculture-technology segment has seen growing interest from strategic players and investors, especially social-impact investors. Players in the segment seek to address gaps in India’s existing agricultural processes and provide fair economic incentives to farmers and other members of the ecosystem.
Last month, Sathguru Catalyser Advisors, the asset management company of Innovation in Food and Agriculture Fund, said it would invest up to $6 million (around Rs 43 crore) in Nu Genes Pvt. Ltd, a seed company focused on nutrition crops.
Similarly, the US retail giant Walmart Inc. and its Indian e-commerce arm Flipkart jointly invested in Ninjacart, a business-to-business (B2B) marketplace for agricultural produce.
In November, logistics and supply-chain-focused Kamatan raised Rs 30 crore (around $4.18 million) in funding from Chennai-based Samunnati Agro Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of non-banking financial company Samunnati Financial Intermediation & Services Pvt. Ltd.
