B2B Agritech Marketplace Vegrow Raises Fund in Series B Round

B2B agritech marketplace Vegrow has raised $25 million in a Series B funding round that was spearheaded by Prosus Ventures.

As per Vegrow co-founder Shobhit Jain, the agritech business will use the incoming cash to hire for a variety of positions, strengthen its tech stack, and extend its regional footprint. This Bengaluru-based startup most recently secured $13 Mn in a Series A funding round in July 2021.

Vegrow, a company that was established in 2020 by Praneeth Kumar, Shobhit Jain, Mrudhukar Batchu, and Kiran Naik, asserts to be present in over 100 cities and to assist about 20,000 farmers in reaching the market.

Among other farming-related services, Vegrow offers a variety of tech solutions to farmers, including crop consulting, grading, packing, shipping, and sales. Over 200 tonnes of fruits are processed each day by Vegrow, said, Jain.

Vegrow claims that it has increased 15 times in the last year, with a gross margin of roughly 20%. Our deep technology and data stack across the value chain have enabled the growth to be unlocked. We have developed the capacity to capture farmer talk, forecast farmland output, and gauge demand across tier-I, tier-II, and tier-III marketplaces,” he said.

The annualized revenue run rate for Vegrow is $200 Mn. “Within the next five years, we want to generate a $5 Bn result and sustainably develop” he added.

Investors and the government have become increasingly interested in the nation’s agritech businesses over the past several months. “Agritech firms are essential to India’s future economy”, according to Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology. These firms are resolving issues with inadequate infrastructure, poor supply chain management, and farmers’ limited access to a wider choice of markets.

Agritech businesses raised over $684 million last year through 47 investment deals. Between 2014 and 2021, the agritech industry raised a total of $1 Bn in funding. The $40 million raised by WayCool, an agritech startup that ships perishable agricultural products to retail stores, is one example of recent investment activities in the agritech sector. Additionally, the agritech startup Absolute raised $100 Mn earlier in May.