Agritech startup Ergos has raised $10 million Series B round via a combination of equity and debt. The funding round was led by Abler Nordic – a Norway based financial inclusion fund, and existing investors Aavishkaar Capital, Chiratae Ventures and Trifecta Venture Debt Fund.
Founded in 2012 by Kishor Kumar Jha and Praveen Kumar, Ergos works on a farm-gate based Grainbank model that links farmers to markets, safe grain storage in warehouses, access to affordable finance through partner lenders and get better prices for their produce. It also provides them with end-to-end post-harvest supply chain solutions by leveraging technology.
Ergos is bringing small and marginal farmers into the mainstream of economic activity by offers farmers 9-month storage for their harvest and grants credit on up to 70 percent of the stored grains.
“Ergos’s comprehensive Grainbank platform enables farmers to take optimal decisions on sales / storage of their produce, access credit from Banks as well as get access to competitive prices through planned liquidations and access to a wide spectrum of buyers. We are overwhelmed by the immense opportunity ahead of us and we intend to further deepen our presence amongst the farming community even whilst we rapidly scale our operations,” said Kishor Jha, Founder and CEO at Ergos.
According to the agritech startup, it is currently supporting over 160,000 farmers on its platform and has a physical network of farm-gate based warehouses in over 200 locations across the states of Bihar, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Over the past decade, the firm claims to have helped farmers increase their income by 30-35 percent in a year.
Shashvat Rai, Partner, Aavishkaar Capital who invested through the Aavishkaar Bharat Fund (ABF), said, “An app-based interface facilitating trades & financing with the ability to serve smallholder farmers and inherent strong network effects within farmer & buyer communities on the Ergos platform, strongly positions the company for a rapid expansion in the 300 mn MT+ grain market in India. We believe models such as Ergos’ Grainbanking model will be able to shift the power back in the hands of farmers, the most vital entrepreneur in the food supply chains across the world.”
In 2021, Ergos bagged Rs 22.5 crore from UK-based British International Investment (BII), formerly CDC Group Plc as part of its Series A funding round. It had also received investments from Aavishkaar Capital, which had invested Rs 35 crore and Chiratae Ventures which invested Rs 23 crore as part of the Series A round, thus taking the total funding raised in the round to Rs 81 crore.
India has over 1,000 agritech startups that are assisting farmers in improving farming techniques. Agritech startups have raised around Rs 6,600 crore over the last four years from private equity investors, witnessing a growth of over 50 percent per annum, the Economic Survey 2022-23 said.
Recently, agritech startup Leads Connect raised Rs 500 Cr from BL Agro Industries to shore up its tech stack and scale research in deeptech and AI/ML domains. Meanwhile, NABVENTURES invested Rs 10 crore in Satyukt Analytics in June to improve its Sat2farm app which empowers farmers with data-driven insights.
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