Agritech platform DeHaat has raised $115 million as a part of its Series D funding round led by Belgium-based investment firm Sofina and Lightrock India.
Temasek co-invested in the round with participation from existing investors including Prosus, RTP Global, Sequoia Capital India and Dutch development bank FMO.
Nine-year DeHaat provides end-to-end agriculture services including agricultural input, crop advisory, market linkage platform and financial services to farmers.
The company plans to use the proceeds from the current fundraise to expand its geographic focus, increase investment in technology infrastructure, as well as increase the spread of financial services offerings.
Post this round, the company has raised close to $157 million since its inception in 2012.
“We at DeHaat are on a mission to build the world’s largest agritech platform. Our team has grown to a brigade of over 850 professionals with deep expertise in growth and strategy, supply chain, technology, and agricultural science. The last seven months have been phenomenal with five-fold growth for DeHaat. Hence, we are now well poised to replicate the success in all major agriculture clusters of India in the next 12-15 months,” said Shashank Kumar, co-founder and chief executive officer, DeHaat.
According to Kumar, the company is expected to grow its technology function to 200 members in the next six months.
“We have started offering financial services on its platform just five months back and look to add new touchpoints for farmers. Our focus will also be on bringing more relevant services to our farmer partners including animal-related services, crop spraying among others. DeHaat’s model will continue to be crop agnostic,” said Kumar in an interaction with Mint.
In five months of launch, DeHaat has already facilitated a loan book of Rs 75 crore, with almost 17000 farmers availing insurance across 12 financial partners on its platform.
“Through our due diligence, we became convinced that DeHaat is bringing substantial value-add to the farming community in India. The uniqueness of its full-stack approach combined with the ‘phygital’ go-to-market strategy further reaffirmed our view that the company is on track to become a significant player in the farming industry in India,“ said Yana Kachurina, principal, Sofina.
The company, at present, has a strong foothold in eastern part of India including states of Bihar, Jharkhand. With the fundraise, the company will look to go deeper in Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan this year. The company is also looking to expand its footprint across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Chattisgarh.
"We have been following DeHaat’s progress through the years and are impressed with their steep growth trajectory combined with a strong network of micro-entrepreneurs. Through innovative social engineering and tech-led execution, DeHaat has built the largest first-mile network for farmers and is well-positioned to help transform agriculture by improving yields and farmer income,” said Vaidhehi Ravindran, partner at Lightrock India.
Currently, DeHaat serves over 650,000 farmers across its platform. It has a network of 3000 franchise agents on ground acting as last mile touchpoints for its customers. The company plans to reach 2 million farmers and grow its last-mile touchpoints to 12000 franchise agents in the next 18 months, it said.