Green AgRevolution Pvt. Ltd, which operates the DeHaat online marketplace for farm products and services, has acqui-hired farm management services provider VezaMart.
DeHaat said in a statement VezaMart employees will join its own team and continue developing solutions for farmers. It didn’t disclose any financial deals of the deal.
DeHaat said the transaction is in line with its target of reaching one million farmers by 2021. It currently reaches 100,000 farmers across states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, its website shows.
DeHaat co-founder and CEO Shashank Kumar said the two companies had a similar approach to farm management.
“We are targeting to work with 300,000 farmers in eastern Indian states to provide them the complete end-to-end agricultural value chain service,” Kumar said of DeHaat’s medium-term goals in response to queries sent by VCCircle. The company has no current plans to make any other acqui-hires or buyouts, he added.
Separately, Vezamart co-founder Harendra Chaudhary said the acqui-hire would give the two companies a larger impact and greater operational scale.
DeHaat was founded in 2012 by IIT-Delhi graduate Shashank Kumar, IIM-Ahmedabad’s Shyam Sundar Singh and NIT-Jamshedpur alumnus Amrendra Singh.
The acquisition gives DeHaat access to new regions, newer farmers’ network in western Uttar Pradesh and a dedicated team with entrepreneurial experience in agri-tech, said Sundar Singh. Amrendra Singh said DeHaat plans to set up five warehouses in western Uttar Pradesh to cater to over 50,000 farmers in the current financial year.
DeHaat's technology platform offers end-to-end agricultural services to farmers. These include distribution of inputs, farm advisory services, access to financial services and market linkages for farmers to sell their produce.
In March, it had raised $4 million (Rs 27.5 crore) in a pre-Series A round from impact investor Omnivore and US investor AgFunder. Earlier this month, DeHaat received Rs 20 crore in venture debt from Trifecta Capital.
VezaMart was started in 2016 by Ahmedabad-based Nirma University’s alumni Harendra Chaudhary, Abhinav Raghuvansi and Nilima Vora. The VezaMart platform lists more than 700 farm input stock-keeping units and 120 institutional buyers, the DeHaat statement said.
The company started with the aim of improving farm productivity by providing customized agri-information. It later pivoted to an agricultural input m-commerce platform for farmers. The company says it has worked with over 10,000 farmers and supplied over 3,000 orders.
