Startup India- Agri Tech start-up opportunities and success stories
Agriculture is mainstream for India’s rural population that constitutes almost 70% of the nation. It is also a primary source of livelihood for more than 58% of the population. To accelerate agriculture the fusion of agriculture and technology is making heads turn.
Agritech is the use of technology in agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture with the aim of improving yield, efficiency, and profitability. This technology is critical in India where agriculture has been the mainstay of the economy for centuries. Agritech impacts not only cultivation and harvesting but also can be applied across the entire agriculture value chain and the technology can be delivered in the form of either product, services, or applications.
Several years ago almost no one knew what agritech was. But fast forward to today’s agricultural technologies from vertical farming to data science to farm drones. It has become a brand new theme in investor circles today.
Agricultural biotechnology, farm management software, sensing and IoT, robotics, novel farming system, food safety and traceability are the key areas which have evolved not only in agriculture scenario but are also increasing the income with the fusion of agriculture and technology.
India ranked in the global agritech market in 2019. It had more than 350 agritech startups in the country working to make agricultural supply chains farm data collections, analytics, and farm infrastructure more robust and efficient. The startup run by young entrepreneurs is innovating across the agriculture value chain. Agrowave is one such company that focuses on a highly unorganized agricultural supply chain using research analytics and technology that change the face of Indian agriculture. It is also working towards making the process transparent. It also offers better prices to farmers and leverages the power of technology to the farmers for better information and management.
Though many challenges are still present in this sector. The agritech sector of India has just started coming of age. To increase the penetration of technology in India’s agriculture sector agritech startup practice training sessions for farmers. Both central and state governments are also providing financial support to them. Setting up incubators even as large as agribusiness companies are also pitching in by sharpening their focus on these technologies. A few key incubators for agritech companies included the center for innovation incubation and entrepreneurship at Ahmedabad. National Academy of Agricultural Research Management was established by the Indian council of agricultural research at Hyderabad and the globally reputed ihub in Andhra Pradesh. Statistics indicate a great extent. Karnataka and Maharashtra account for almost 50 % of the total agritech startup opened in the last 5 years.
Agritech enables the broadcast of relevant information such as weather forecasts directly to farmers’ smartphones. They also provide the support solutions such as helping farmers sell their crops, pest, and nutrition management solutions, smartphones controlled motors, Hitech irrigation using sprinklers.
The future of agritech is even more exciting. Researchers at agritech startups around the world are developing technologies such as specialized autonomous robots that can take care of the entire process from sowing to harvesting with minimal human interventional and system tools for tracking crop health and growth. Today we are witnessing the use of drones for crop monitoring.
Some of the successful agritech startups are
Ninjacart
ninjacart was found in the year 2015. ninjacart was founded by five members namely Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Kartheeswaran KK, Sachin Jose, Vasudevan Chinnathambi, Ashutosh Vikram, Sharath Loganathan. Employing more than 1000 employees. It is a B2B agritech startup that aims to upgrade the production and supply of fresh produce. In simple words, the firm does the work of picking up the freshly produced fruits and vegetables from the farmers directly and then delivering them to local retail outlets. The revenue made by the company comes mainly from the commission it takes in performing this entire process. One of the most important issues that are tackled by the startup very well is that of middlemen. It totally eliminates the work or needs of the middlemen and accesses the bridge between farmers and the public for delivering fresh produce since its birth the company has successfully received funds from global investors.
Waycool
Waycool is a Chennai-based company. Waycool foods and products were founded in July 2015. A business to consumer entity. The firm’s main work was that of the supply chain under the name SunnyBee founded by Karthik Jayaraman and Sanjay Dasari. The management decides to take a step further in 2017. The company decided to adopt a B2B model as well for their business. The B2B model was popularized with the motto of Farm to Fork. Now the startup makes around 90% of its revenue from the B2B segment and has top-notch clients like taj hotels. Waycool sources fruits and vegetables from farmers, aggregators and then sell them through a number of distribution channels.
Agrostar
Agrostar was founded in the year 2012 by brothers Shardul Sheth and Sitanshu Sheth. Agrostar is an eCommerce platform that helps the farmer to procure raw materials. The startup’s mobile application was launched in 2016. Within a few months of its launch around 40,000 farmers became its active users. It’s a well-known fact that the rural Indian farmers mostly faced the problem of unavailability of farming products, unfair prizes, and lack of information. Agrostar was launched with the purpose to overcome these hurdles. Over the years the firm has partnered with renowned brands like Syngenta to make easy availability of raw materials such as seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs needed by the farmers. The most striking feature about the firm Is that it provides real-time information and help via its application where it guides the farmers for increasing their yield.
There are many entrepreneurs that are working for the betterment of the agricultural sector across the nation. The world’s 2nd largest population depends on agriculture as a major source of income. Agritech is and will hold in not only churning the best out of the Indian agriculture value chain but also in the ease of advancing business in the economy
