Bengaluru: Unitus Seed Fund on Tuesday said it has invested an undisclosed amount in VillFarm Agrisolutions Pvt. Ltd, a Bengaluru-based start-up that provides organic agri-input products for farmers in South India.
This is the second round of funding that the company has received from Unitus, a $23 million impact fund, since 2012.
The start-up, founded in 2012 by Ashutosh Kumar Sinha and Paul Basil, aims to use the new funds to build its product lines and to expand distribution across South India.
Other investors in the round included Zurich-based Rianta Capital, angel investor R. Ramaraj, founder of Sify, and a group of non-resident impact and angel investors represented by Sunil Edwards, Unitus said in a statement.
Bengaluru-based Unitus, part of the US-based Unitus Group, said it considers organic and natural agri-input products as a fast-growing segment in India.
“There is a large potential to disrupt the agricultural sector by providing superior quality inputs that result in improved yields as well as farming sustainability,” stated Dave Richards, managing partner at Unitus Seed Fund.
VillFarm said it will scale up its organic agri-product lines using the fresh funds. “We are doing this across multiple crops and through crop-lifecycles by providing simple, cost-effective solutions for farmers,” Sundarraj Mahadevan, CEO of VillFarm, said.
VillFarm is in the process of marketing PUSA-Hydrogels, a granular product mixed with soil before sowing seeds for better moisture content developed by state-funded Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), commonly known as PUSA institute.
Hydrogels are polymer-based products and increase the water-retaining capacity of farmlands, helping farmers boost crop yields in areas where water is scarce. With about half of India’s crop area dependent on monsoon rains, it has found appeal among farmers in arid states, according to IARI. VillFarm, according to Unitus’s statement, has entered into a strategic partnership with Carborundum Universal Ltd (CUMI), a Murugappa Group company, to market PUSA Hydrogel.
The agricultural sector accounts for 14% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) and about 11% of exports. Over the last few years, the growing start-up ecosystem in India has also translated into mushrooming agro-start-ups such as Mandi Trades, FlyBird, Farmily and Barrix, which offer solutions like better price discovery, effective irrigation, organic pest control and smarter weather forecasting to farmers.
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