4 Agritech startups are innovating to help farmers increase productivity and yield
Agriculture is gradually evolving into the next high-tech industry. Blockchain, artificial intelligence, and computer vision technologies are being used to improve crop yields, supply chains, and sustainability. According to a 2019 NASSCOM report, India has over 450 agritech startups that are growing at a rate of 25% year on year. These firms are increasingly empowering 150 million farmers with data-driven systems. These Indian agritech startups are increasing farmer income and making agriculture more profitable. Let’s take a peek at 4 agritech startups that are helping farmers with the increase in productivity.
Unnati – Unnati, conceptualized and co-founded by Mr Amit Sinha & Mr Ashok Prasad, is a fintech based Agri platform which aims to minimize the risks in farming and ensure much-needed transparency in the farming business. Unnati’s founders recognised the difficulties farmers experience as a result of farming’s lack of predictability and regular access to production inputs and information. Digital technology has the potential to play a key role and deliver immediate answers in this situation. Their objective to connect farmers to a single digital platform that supports farm entrepreneurship has been their driving force, resulting in the development of a complete ecosystem for farm entrepreneurs. From Unnati financial services to crop-specific consultancy, the brand works with farmers at every stage of the farming life cycle to ensure a sustainable future.
Agribazaar – Founded in 2016, the idea behind AgriBazaar is to deliver tech-enabled future-ready solutions to the farming community in a frictionless manner and revolutionize the way post-harvest management services are processed across the country. It is this vision that empowered AgriBazaar to facilitate INR 9000 crore (GMV) worth of transactions since its inception, making it one of India’s largest online agri-trading marketplace.
Aquaconnect – Founded by Rajamanohar Somasundaram, Aquaconnect is a full-stack aquaculture platform with embedded fintech that uses Satellite remote sensing and Artificial Intelligence to enable aquaculture farmers, retailers, and seafood buyers increase access to formal credit, farm inputs and post-harvest markets. Their unique tech solutions supercharge the entire aquaculture value chain and help build predictability and transparency into the value chain thereby making it efficient. Aquaconnect is funded by HATCH-Norway, India’s pioneer Agritech VC Omnivore, Japan’s Rebright Partners, Flourish ventures, AgFunder, 6G Capital, Trifecta Capital and Lok Capital.
Fasal – Fasal started with a simple idea – Removing guesswork from farming. 2018 was where Fasal started the journey with just four team members and now we are on our way to impact Indian Agriculture in a big way! Since its inception, Fasal has helped its numerous farmers reduce cost of cultivation and increased quality and yield, through our AI powered platform for horticulture, delivering farm specific, crop specific, crop-stage specific, actionable advisory. We propagate sustainable agriculture and our solution impacts the social, economical and environmental facets, hence making a big impact on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
