Agritech platform AgroStar is looking to double its turnover to over ₹1,000 crore this financial year as it seeks to scale up its services and product offerings to farmers, besides diversifying its export basket of fresh produce in the year ahead.

The Pune-headquartered company had clocked a revenue of about ₹500 crore in the financial year-ended March 2022, during which it also acquired INI Farms, a large exporter of fruits such as bananas and pomegranates. “We see a potential to cross revenues of ₹1,000 crore this year” said Shardul Sheth, Co-founder and CEO, AgroStar. The company expects the growth to come from both inputs and exports, which it expects to double in the current year.

Engaging more with farmers

AgroStar plans to increase the wallet share of the farmers, besides getting more farmers to buy and sell their produce through the platform. “We aim to engage more with the over one million farmers, who have transacted through our platform, by selling more inputs such as agrochemicals and seeds,” he said.

Further, AgroStar, which has a omnichannel presence through the network of 3,000 retail stores, aims to more than double the number of stores to around 7,000 this year, while selling newer products like fertilisers. “We are also planning to sell fertilisers and micronutrients, including organic fertilisers through our platform and retail stores,” Sheth said.

The company also plans to leverage its physical presence to offer soil analysis to farmers to offer more customised solution to the farmers going ahead.

Founded in 2013, AgroStar is eyeing a break-even over the next 18 months. “At this point we want to achieve a certain scale and are already profitable operationally. We have strong gross margins and at an enterprise level we can achieve profitability within the next 18 months,” he said.

Credit access

The company also plans to help farmers and retailers access credit and insurance through its technology platform by partnering with non-banking financial companies. Presently, AgroStar is running pilots with entities such as JaiKisan and others to help enable farmers access credit through its platform, which will be scaled up later this year, Sheth said. “Our ultimate goal is to make available affordable high quality finance to farmers,” he said.

On the export side, AgroStar would be looking at diversifying its product portfolio to include vegetables later during the year. There’s a consistent demand coming in for quality Indian fresh produce, Sheth said. AgroStar is exporting bananas, pomegranates, mango, onion and grapes among other fresh produce.

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