DeHaat, an agri-tech platform that helps farmers access agri inputs and financial services, and sell their produce, has raised $12 million (₹83 crore) in a Series A round funding led by Sequoia India and FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. Existing investors Omnivore and AgFunder also participated in the latest round of funding.

Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, said the company plans to use the funds to strengthen its presence in States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, where it currently operates, and also to expand to newer regions, mainly in North India. “We are looking at expanding our presence to Rajasthan on a pilot basis this year,” Kumar told BusinessLine .

DeHaat currently operates about 443 retail centres in eastern India, enabling about 2.1 lakh farmers to access over 3,000 agri inputs and customised crop advisory. It also provides market linkages to these farmers to sell their produce such as corn, wheat, rice, fruits and vegetables, by connecting with over 200 commodity bulk buyers, including retail chains, e-commerce players, FMCG companies and SME food processors.

“We plan to increase our retail centres to about 2,000 and serve about a million farmers by June 2021,” Kumar said.

DeHaat will use some of the new funding to automate its supply chain and build the next layer of data analytics to drive further supply chain efficiency. “Sequoia’s deep expertise in B2B platforms and technology products, combined with FMO’s expertise in agricultural value chain financing, will help DeHaat accelerate its growth while delivering massive impact for the farmers we work with,” Kumar added.

Earlier funding rounds

DeHaat earlier raised a $4-million (₹29 crore) pre-Series A round in March 2019, led by Omnivore and AgFunder, which was topped up in May 2019 with an additional $3 million (₹20 crore) of venture debt from Trifecta Capital.

“Indian agriculture is a $350-billion industry powered by close to 100 million small and independent farmers. This industry is on the brink of a massive transformation with ease of regulation, farmers getting organised and increasing smartphone penetration and DeHaat is leveraging these trends to build the next-gen product in agricultural supply chain,” said Abhishek Mohan, VP, Sequoia Capital India LLP.

Jaap Reinking, Director - Private Equity at FMO, said: “Increasing economic uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic is a grave concern to all. Especially in these challenging times, it is important to continue our support for innovative businesses in emerging markets, and focus on accelerating sustainable development.”

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