Homegrown private equity players Omnivore and Kalaari Capital have re-invested in AgNext Technologies in a $21 million (around Rs 156 crore) Series A funding round.
The investment marks the largest Series A funding received by an Indian agritech startup to date, according to a company statement.
The fundraising was led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) fund which is backed by DisruptAD and managed by Falcon Edge.
AgNext is also AWI’s first investment in India’s agritech sector.
In 2018, the Chandigarh-based agri-analytics startup had raised an undisclosed amount of funds in a round led by social impact firm Omnivore.
In this round, AgNext has also delivered a 5x exit to a-IDEA, India’s first agribusiness incubator managed by the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management in Hyderabad, the statement further said.
Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, founder and CEO of AgNext, said the company is ready to scale up its operations globally.
Founded in 2016 by Bhamra, AgNext provides solutions for food quality assessment, monitoring, and management.
AgNext, focused on horticulture and plantation crops, collects spatial, temporal and spectral data to provide solutions across the agriculture and food value chain. Its digital platform aims to improve productivity and profitability of growers and food processors.
With the latest capital infusion, the agri-analytics startup incubated at IIT-Kharagpur will enter new commodities, strengthen pan-India presence and expand to international markets such as the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia.
“The funds will also be used for the development of tech platform Qualix, and to enable quality-driven trade transactions across the food value chain. The company will establish an office in Abu Dhabi for deeper penetration into targeted markets by diversifying its commodities portfolio and accelerating innovation to make food trade better, fairer, and more secure in the new geographies,” the statement added.
