Plant bioscience company Absolute Thursday said it has raised $100 million across recent funding rounds from Sequoia Capital India, Alpha Wave Global, and Tiger Global.
The capital will be used to strengthen the firm's technology, hire and scale in newer markets and segments, Agam Khare, founder and chief executive officer, Absolute, said in a statement.
Founded in 2015 by Khare and later joined by co-founder and chief operating officer Prateek Rawat, Absolute has 3 main platforms - bioscience research platform, universal farm operating system (Farm OS), and global trade platform.
The company spent the last six years to understand microscopic details of nature’s molecular building blocks that impact agricultural yield and quality.
Its R&D platform (BioX) works at the intersection of plant biology, microbiology, omics, molecular biology, epigenetics and artificial intelligence (AI).
The term omics refers to fields of study in biological sciences such as genomics, proteomics or metabolomics.
Its farm OS platform helps generate insights for farmers to maintain the most optimal growing conditions throughout crop cycles, which helps in increasing yield by up to 20%, leading to a profitability jump of up to 40%, the statement said.
The company is in the process of deploying its Farm OS across more than 100,000 acres of its next-generation precision farm network.
Through its global trade platform, the company provides fresh produce to around 10 countries at present and plans to expand in other markets rapidly.
"Our pursuit is to drive the world towards an inflection point where science-led agronomy practices converge to create a profound impact on the lives of farmers and consumers," said Rawat, who previously worked with companies such as Adobe Systems and Zinnov.
Navroz D Udwadia, co-founder, Alpha Wave Global, noted that Absolute's AI-driven scientific approach to agriculture creates a meaningful uplift for all participants across the agri value chain.
The broader agritech segment in India has attracted significant investor interest in the past years. According to a Bain report last year, private equity and venture capital investments in the agritech segment increased to $329 million in 2020 from $296 million in 2019. The segment will see significant investment and is projected to grow to a $30–$35 billion market by 2025, it said.
Some of the significantly funded startups in this space include Ninjacart, DeHaat, WayCool and AgroStar.