Indian agritech start-up 'Freshokartz' raises pre-series A

Freshokartz Agri Products Pvt Limited, a premier agri-tech start-up has received Rs 10 crore (USD 1.4 million) pre-series A funding from Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) and AWE (Achieving Women Equity) Funds to finance its rapid technology rollout while scaling its operations as a provider of premier technology-enabled omnichannel supply chain optimizing solutions along with agronomy advisory and output linkages.

"Our company has witnessed significant growth even during the COVID-19 crisis, which is driven by our team's differentiated understanding of India's agricultural supply chain, its markets, and its participants were given our personal farming backgrounds. This helps us execute effectively as an effective and integrated agriculture supply chain company. Getting RVCF and AWE Funds' investment support will help expand and consolidate our footprint not only in Rajasthan but also in neighboring states," noted Rajendra Lora, Founder, on the success of Freshokartz latest round of funding.

"We are especially delighted with the powerful combination of our two investors who bring significant synergistic value to our company in helping us develop our organization with more than just capital. The vast experiences of the two teams, their associated networks, and their focus on not only commercial returns but also a genuine interest in improvement in the lives of farmers, especially women farmers, have made this a very valuable partnership," remarked Chandrakanta, Co-founder.

Freshokartz is operating 40 physical centers in Rajasthan and working with more than 90,000 farmers. Freshokartz has a target to reach 1 million farmers in the next 12-15 months. Freshokartz is working with more than 100 Agri inputs companies including UPL, Chambal Fertilizers to provide the best Agri inputs to farmer's doorsteps.

Freshokartz has developed a mobile app for farmers where farmers can place orders from nearby centers. The business model has been built bottom-up where most of the team comes from a farming background and are providing solutions to the farm level pain points of the farmers.

Freshokartz provides soil-based crop and fertiliser's recommendation to farmers through Agronomist and through the call center. Freshokartz has opened network or digitalized physical Agri kiosks at the village level and deliver Agri advisory, inputs and collect farmer output through centers or their doorsteps.

Freshokartz also facilitates farmers in getting financial/insurance through partners. Freshokartz is building a complete hybrid model for farmers where farmers get Pre and Postharvest agriculture-related services.

Freshokartz will be using these funds for expansion within Rajasthan and other nearby states like Haryana, MP, UP, and other northern states of India. The Funds will be used in capacity building, tech development, and geographic expansion.

"It is pertinent for us to look at startups which can sustain in these challenging times by differentiation and innovation. By focusing on farmer's multitude of farming needs, Freshokartz is providing full-stack solutions for better farm outcomes. The team has strong execution capabilities and expects to see significant growth in the coming years. We are happy to partner with Freshokartz in the journey," said Gaurav Chowdhry, VP at RVCF.

"At AWE Funds, given our team's deep Agri expertise, we believe that the agri-tech industry is poised for rapid growth. Furthermore, we found FAPL's focus on appropriate and adaptable farmer-centric technology especially on the downstream input side of the supply chain to be a very compelling investment thesis. Added to the fact that the main beneficiaries are marginal farmers of whom 70 per cent are women, this investment is very aligned with our gender lens focused investment mandate in Achieving Women Equity," observed Seema Chaturvedi, FounderManaging Partner of AWE Funds.

Founded in 2016, by Rajendra Lora and Chandrakanta, the Agri tech start-up provides a technology-enabled full stack of services to small and marginal farmers including agricultural inputs, crop advisory, output linkages, crop insurance, and financing to optimize a currently inefficient Agri supply chain while enhancing price realization by farmers.

Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) is operational since 2002 and is currently investing out of its third fund. The fund invests in Early and Growth stage transformative companies in Agri/Food, IT/ITES, Healthcare, Education space.

AWE Funds is an early growth equity fund investing in innovative enterprises to promote gender equity. We use AWE Funds' proprietary gender lens to invest pre-series A, Series A rounds in women-owned, led, or influenced businesses in AgriTech, HealthTech, EdTech, FintechSustainability (CleantechWater) business in India.