Agstack Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates agricultural-technology platform Gramophone, has raised $10 million in a new financing round led by Z3Partners.
Existing investors Info Edge, Asha Impact, Siana Capital along with new investors Amit Sharma from erstwhile Sunrise Group, Sumeet Kanwar from Verity, and Chona Family Office of Havmor Group took part in the round.
Gramophone said it will use the funds towards geographic expansion, marketing, technology development, and mergers and acquisitions.
The company provides agronomy services and input and output products in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan by way of an ecommerce marketplace.
“We have seen a huge shift in the adoption of technology solutions by the new-age farmers. With this investment, we will double down on investing in technologies that lower costs, improve transparency, and empower the local community of agri entrepreneurs with more earning opportunities in rural areas,” Tauseef Khan, co-founder & CEO, Gramophone, said.
Gramaphone said it is working on partnerships with financial institutions to launch micro-insurance and lending products for the farming ecosystem which will include the farmers, input retailers, and the output traders as well.
Gramophone started as agronomy-led, agri-input commerce company in 2016 by IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Ahmedabad alumni Nishant Mahatre and Tauseef Khan. Both founders had stints in agri-tech companies and venture capital funds before starting Gramophone.
The startup had in May 2017 raised $1.5 million in angel funding from a clutch of individual investors. In December 2020, it raised $3.4 million led by Siana Capital.
A slew of tech startups focused on agriculture have attracted funding from investors in the past few months.
In July, agritech startup Crofarm Agriproducts raised $10.2 million as part of its Series A round of financing for its community group buying platform Otipy.
In the same month, Vegrow raised $13 million (Rs 97 crore) as part of its Series A funding round from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Elevation Capital.
FarMart is among several startups in the larger agri-tech segment to pull in funding from strategic players and investors. This year, venture capital funds have already pumped in $234 million in 32 agritech startups till September.
Over the past year, DeHaat, Jai Kisan, AgNext, WayCool, and Animall have raised $115.95 million cumulatively.
Last month, business-to-business agricultural-commerce platform SuperZop raised $4 million ( Rs 29.6 crore) and Crofarm
Agriproducts raised a $10.2 million (Rs 76 crores) Series A round.
Early-stage government-backed venture growth fund Nabventures told VCCircle this week that within the next 30 days, it will increase its overall investments in the agri-tech space to Rs 150 crore.