Stellapps Technologies Pvt. Ltd, an Internet of Things (IoT) firm operating in the dairy supply chain, said it has raised $18 million in a Series C funding round led by Nutreco, a Dutch animal nutrition and aquaculture company.
Qualcomm Ventures, Celesta Capital, and ABB Technology Ventures also participated in the round.
Stellapps is a dairy digitisation service provider that helps clients in the dairy industry improve productivity and quality as well as provide traceability across the supply chain. The startup plans on using the funds to scale its traceability network and extend its digital footprint.
“We are on a mission to shift the Indian smallholder farmers into the agripreneur orbit by enhancing productivity, improving quality, and enabling traceability through our smartMoo solutions. The support and confidence of our investors allow us to actualize our vision to enhance farmer income and profitability through a combination of our technology solutions, farm inputs, and market linkages,” Ranjith Mukundan, CEO of Stellapps, said.
The agri-tech firm was co-founded in 2011 by Mukundan, Praveen Nale, Ravishankar Shiroor, Ramakrishna Adukuri, and Venkatesh Seshasayee.
Several applications are available on its platform, including smartMoo technology solutions that enhance productivity, milk quality, and enable traceability. By enabling ecosystem partnerships through its online platform, Stellapps claims to empower farmers by providing access to financial services, quality nutrition, and timely veterinary care. Stellapps' mooPay FinTech arm facilitates the financial inclusion of smallholder farmers by providing access to digital payments, banking, savings, cash withdrawal, credit, and insurance.
Stellapps counts several dairy farms, cooperatives, and private dairies operating in India, Nepal, Kenya, Bulgaria, Russia, and France among its clients.
In 2013, Stellapps had received seed funding from venture capital firm Omnivore Partners. It was initially incubated at the Rural Technology Business Incubator in IIT Madras.
According to the company, the Indian market for the dairy sector accounts for about 6.5% of India's GDP, a market worth about $225 billion. India is the largest milk producer in the world and contributes to 22% of global milk production.
In 2017, Stellapps raised a Series A round from Blume Ventures, Venture Highway, Binny Bansal, and 500 Startups.
The firm had raised its Series A and Series B rounds of funding in 2017 July and May 2018, respectively.
A slew of tech startups focused on agriculture have attracted funding from investors in the past few months.
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.
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.
