Agri-tech startup Crofarm, which connects farmers with retailers, has raised Rs 5 crore ($783,000) in a pre-Series A round led by US-based venture development firm Factor[e] Ventures, its co-founder Varun Khurana told VCCircle.
Google India managing director Rajan Anandan and PayU India managing director Jitendra Gupta also invested in the round.
The investment was made via online deal-making platform LetsVenture.
Through its app, Crofarm Agiproducts Pvt. Ltd sells fruits and vegetables directly sourced from farmers. The app also tracks retail-ordering behaviour and predicts demand using machine-learning, guiding customers on the right order size.
“Crofarm uses a combination of smart logistics and a sophisticated technology platform that allows reduction of post-harvest losses by 30%, and its asset-light business model lends itself to scalability nationwide,†said Satyajit Suri, country director for Factor[e]’s India operations.
The company was founded in May 2016 by former Grofers executives Khurana and Prashant Jain. Prior to starting up, Khurana was chief technical officer at the daily essentials delivery app while Jain was vice president of operations.
According to VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle, Crofarm had raised $1.5 million in a seed round from Pravega Ventures and other investors in July last year.
The agri-tech space has seen several venture capital investments of late.
In March, Indian Angel Network (IAN) had made an undisclosed investment in Gurgaon-based FarMart, a renting platform for farm equipment.
Prior to that, Delhi-based VDSS Agri Tech Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates Paalak.in, raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from a clutch of angel investors.
In January 2017, Mumbai-based RML AgTech Pvt. Ltd, which provides support services to farmers via mobile phones, raised $4 million (Rs 27.2 crore) from existing investor IvyCap Ventures.