Agritech Start-up 'Freshokartz' Raises Pre-Series a Round of USD 1.4 Million to Fund Rapid Growth By CIOReviewIndia Team

Agritech Start-up 'Freshokartz' Raises Pre-Series a Round of USD 1.4 Million to Fund Rapid Growth

CIOReviewIndia Team | Wednesday, 28 October 2020, 09:13 IST

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A premier Agri-tech startup, Freshokartz Agri Products Pvt. Limited received INR 10 crore pre-series A funding from Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) and AWE (Achieving Women Equity) Funds for rapid technology rollout and scaling its operations as a provider of premier technology-enabled omnichannel supply chain optimizing solutions along with agronomy advisory and output linkages.

Rajendra Lora, Founder, Freshokartz, said, “Our company has witnessed significant growth even during COVID-19 crisis, which is driven by our team’s differentiated understanding of India’s agricultural supply chain, its markets and its participants 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.”

Co-Founder Chandrakanta said, “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 lives of farmers, especially women farmers, have made this a very valuable partnership.”

Freshokartz has operations in 40 physical centers in Rajasthan and is working with 90,000+ farmers. It has a target of reaching 1+ million farmers in the following 12-1 months. It is working with 100+ Agri Inputs companies like UPL, Chambal Fertilizers for providing the best Agri inputs to a farmer’s doorstep. Freshokartz has a mobile app for farmers where farmers can place orders from nearby centers and the business model has been built bottom-up where most of the team comes from the farming background and are providing solutions to the famr level pain points of the farmers.

Freshokarts provides soil-based crop and fertilizers suggestion to the farmers by Agronomist and call center. It has incepted a network or say digitalized physical agri kiosks at the village level and deliver Agri advisory, inputs, and collect farmer output from centers or their doorsteps. Freshokartz is also facilitating farmers in getting financial/insurance through partners. Freshokartz is developing a complete hybrid model for farmers where farmers get Pre and postharvest agriculture-related services.

Freshokartz will use the funds for expansion within Rajasthan and other nearby states like
Haryana, M.P, U.P and other northern states of India. The funds will be utilized in capacity development, 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 expect 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% are women, this investment is very aligned with our gender lens focused investment mandate in Achieving Women Equity,” stated Seema Chaturvedi, Founder & Managing Partner of AWE Funds.

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