SaaS-based Agri-Tech Startup CropIn Registers a 300% Growth

Backed by Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (London & Seattle), SaaS-based agri-tech solutions provider, CropIn registers a 3X recurring revenue growth in the last five quarters, and aims to reach 6 million farmers by 2022 with 15 million acres being monitored through its platform.

The Bengaluru-headquartered SaaS provider has grown by 300% during the last 15 months. The company, which first marked its global presence in late 2017, is today generating more than 50% of its current revenue from its international markets and plans to generate 70% in the next one year. CropIn has partnered with over 185+ clients across 30 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, enriching the lives of over 2.1 million farmers by digitizing over 5 million acres of farmlands.

In November, the company had raised $8 million in a Series B financing from Chiratae Ventures and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (London and Seattle).

A pioneer in the agri-tech space, the company’s growth story started with the launch its first product ‘SmartFarm’ in 2012. SmartFarm is a comprehensive digital farming technology that enables efficient farm management through digitization, empowers data-driven decision-making, and provides complete visibility of people, processes, and performance on the field.

“Our prospects had not seen a product like SmartFarm in the B2B space earlier that has the capability to solve complex supply-chain problems in the ag-ecosystem by impacting growers and their end customers to achieve per acre value through Traceability and Predictability. Getting them to trust the effectiveness of the product and integrate our solution with their digital strategy was our biggest challenge in 2012. We approached big and small agribusinesses to validate our product market fit, and soon, one client after another, we saw our product being adopted seamlessly into their existing conventional systems”, said Krishna Kumar, founder & CEO, CropIn. ‘SmartFarm’ is today a globally recognized and much awarded digital platform, which was recently named the ‘Best Innovation in Digital Farming Technology’ at Agrow Awards 2018 in London. A case study on SmartFarm has been also published by IVEY for classroom training of management students.

CropIn’s global expansion journey began in 2018 with client partnerships across South-East Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.

“2018 was an important year for us in terms of reaching significant milestones. We didn’t just mark our global presence but also launched our predictive and prescriptive solution, ‘SmartRiskTM’ that leverages Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics. SmartRiskTM is a next generation predictive product that is able to detect crops, predict crop health and estimate yield ahead of the harvest, that will provide valuable insights for the agri industry, financial institutions, growers and policy makers”, said Krishna Kumar.

SmartRiskTM is capable of performing regional/plot level analysis by covering all major agricultural areas of the world, on a 10×10 sq mt pixel that is updated every 10 days, consolidating it at a village, postal code, district and country view. It is the perfect product for business entities – such as input companies, commodity traders, farming companies, banks, and larger insurance or reinsurance companies – that are seeking regional insights to make major financial and strategic decisions. SmartRiskTM was announced as a winner at the ‘HDFC Bank Digital Innovation Summit 2018’, for its capabilities that will make agri-lending and agri-insurance processes more data-driven.

In India, CropIn has marked its presence in 70% of the states and the company’s underlying mission runs parallel to the Indian Government’s vision for the agri-sector, which is to double the farming income by 2022. CropIn has a tie-up with the Department of Agriculture (DOA), Government of Karnataka, to help farmers create more value for their crops. The project aims to assist 4.15 lakh farmers across 30 districts of Karnataka in digitizing 3.4 lakh acres of farmlands.

Additionally, after validating the effectiveness of CropIn’s products, the World Bank has chosen CropIn as the technology partner in the public–private partnership project of the Government of India and World Bank. The project is aimed to bring a positive change in the farming practices of farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, and successfully help them to adapt with the climatic changes and the associated unpredictability.

So far, CropIn has successfully partnered with government bodies and agribusinesses including but not limited to McCain, Syngenta, Firmenich, Bayer, BASF, Government of Karnataka, Central Government, and the World Bank. The company has carried out swift and successful technology implementations in the agri-tech space on a global scale. Apart from SmartFarm and SmartRisk, CropIn’s other core product offerings include SmartSales, mWarehouse and Acresquare.

CropIn has raised investments amounting to a total of $12 million till date, including Series A funding from Singapore-based BEENEXT in 2016, and $8 million in a Series B funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (London & Seattle) and Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures) in 2018.

Following the Series B financing, CropIn has also strengthened its leadership team by hiring Jitesh Shah as the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), Rupesh Rao as the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) and Rupesh Goel as the Chief Product Officer (CPO).

CropIn has digitized over 5 million acres of farmland and enriched the lives of nearly 2.1 million farmers while managing 265 crops and 3,500 crop varieties on its platform. CropIn’s footprint spans across 30 countries with a track record of carrying out the fastest and most successful technology implementations in the Agri-Tech space on a global scale. The SaaS solutions offered by CropIn are crop and location agnostic.