Indian agritech startup Arya Collateral said Monday it has raised USD 21 million in its Series B round led by Quona Capital, a venture firm focused on fintech in emerging markets, alongside existing investors LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore.
The latest round that was a mix of equity and debt fund will be used to expand financing to farmers through the company’s embedded fintech arm, Aryadhan, and to strengthen its digital post-harvest services and market linkages platform, www.a2zgodaam.com.
Arya works in tandem with all the stakeholders related to agriculture including farmers, enterprises that process large quantities of produce, financial institutions, and international buyers.
Aryadhan, the NBFC arm (non-banking financial corporations) of the Delhi-based company, provides credit to farmers, farmer producer organizations, and agriculture produce aggregators who store commodities in Arya’s warehouses.
“Of the food grains worth USD 130 billion produced by India annually, there are huge losses in primary and secondary markets due to lack of storage, forcing farmers to sell off-cycle for lower returns,” said Arya’s co-founder and CEO, Prasanna Rao.
The company said farmers‘ financing needs are underserved in the market which makes them difficult to store and sell their produce. “Arya’s digital solution pairs warehousing with financing and critical market linkage services to help smallholder farmers thrive,” Rao said in a statement.
Investment in Indian agritech startups has seen a significant boost this year bagging a total of USD 532 million till April 2020, according to a report by Ernst & Young India. The sector is on its way to hold significant ground and create value for institutional investors in 2021 as funds like Sequoia Capital, CDC Group, Qunoa Capital, Alteria Capital, and Omnivore have backed a host of agritech startups this year.
Companies like Ninjacart, Eggoz, DeHaat, Ergos, and Clover are a few among the dozen agritech startups that raised VC money. These startups use technology to provide crop advisory, warehousing facilities, lending solutions, and manage supply-chain issues of farmers.