Agri-tech startup BharatAgri (formerly LeanAgri) on Wednesday said it has raised a pre-Series A funding round from Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal-backed venture capital firm 021 Capital and existing investor India Quotient.
The funding round also saw the participation of two other existing investors Better Capital and Ajay Prabhu, operations chief of Quest Global, it added. It did not disclose financial details of the transaction.
The startup, which is operated by LeanCrop Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd, will use the fresh capital to strengthen its product and expand its presence in India.
BharatAgri was founded in 2017 by Sai Gole and Siddharth Dialani, both engineering graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.
The startup says its technology solution provides paid subscription to farmers for personalised agriculture and farming advisory. Its intelligent farm advisor Krishi Doctor has enabled farmers to clock over 40% increase in yield and significant reduction in management costs, it added.
Dialani, who is CEO, said BharatAgri sold more than 13,000 premium subscriptions during the pandemic. The startup has over 350,000 users.
BharatAgri had raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round led by India Quotient and joined by angel investors early last year.
Sailesh Tulshan, founder, 021 Capital, said he believes that BharatAgri can make a large-scale impact on the agri sector and the lives of farmers in India.
A slew of tech startups focused on agriculture have attracted funding from investors in the past few months. A bunch of venture capital funds VCCircle spoke with had said that startups in the agri space would benefit from the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier this month, Ninjacart, a business-to-business marketplace for agricultural produce, raised money in a follow-on round of funding from US retail giant Walmart Inc and its Indian e-commerce arm Flipkart.
Krishitantra, a soil-tech platform, also raised $1 million in its seed round of funding from agritech-focused venture capital investor Omnivore and Nabventures this month.
Since April this year, startups such as Bijak, Intello Labs and DeHaat all raised Series A funding rounds.
