Stellapps Technologies Pvt. Ltd, an end-to-end dairy technology solutions provider, said it has raised an undisclosed amount from Netherlands-based investor IDH FarmFit, which is the fund's first equity investment in India.
The freshly raised funds will be used by Stellapps to develop advanced technologies to transform the agri-supply chain, the company said in a statement.
The Bangalore-based 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. Through the Stellapps platform, the firm looks to raise farmers’ net income by improving productivity in the value chain, enhancing milk quality and enabling trackability.
An IIT-Madras incubated company founded by a group of IITians in 2011, Stellapps is funded by Omnivore Capital – a fund anchored by Godrej Agrovet Limited and investment patrons include a large group of IIT alumni.
In October 2021, the firm had raised $18 million in a Series C funding round led by Nutreco, a Dutch animal nutrition and aquaculture company.
Among other investors include ABB Ventures, Gates Foundation, Celesta Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Venture Highway and Blume Ventures.
“We are immensely happy to welcome IDH FarmFit Fund as an investor. The investment will contribute towards building out our vision of creating a digital ecosystem that enables smallholder farmers to become entrepreneurs. This involves enabling easy and timely access to extension services, quality cattle nutrition, financial services, market linkage,” said Ranjith Mukundan, Chief Executive Officer at Stellapps.
The dairy tech startup focuses on creating a digital highway and access network to enable the delivery of value-added services including credit, insurance, extension, agri-inputs, among others.
According the the firm, women constitute 83% of dairy farmers in India. Stellapps is committed to developing a gender strategy to promote female leadership through the first equity investment by IDH FarmFit Fund in India, its statement further said.
Through its customer base which includes all major private and cooperative dairies, Stellapps currently digitizes over 13 million litres of milk worth $3.4 million (Rs 25.5 crore) each day and directly impacts 2.8 million dairy farmers in over 35,000 Indian villages across 15 states.
Part of IDH The Sustainable Trade Initiative, IDH Farmfit Fund is a 100 million euros (around $113.6 million and Rs 853 crore) public-private impact fund for smallholder farmers, backed by the Dutch government.
Investors in the IDH Farmfit Fund are the Dutch government, JDE Peet’s, FMO, MondelÄ“z and Unilever.
