Comments
Agri-fintech start-up Carnot Technologies, which is backed by Mahindra and Qualcomm, is eyeing a two-fold revenue growth over the next three years as it scales its operations in both domestic and overseas markets.
The company, which develops telematics devices – the AI-enabled IoT kits that help rental entrepreneurs improve their earnings potential by keeping track on the use of the farm equipment such as tractors, harvesters and paddy transplanters among others.
Installations of Carnot’s devices on farm equipment have crossed 30,000 and the company is aiming to add 50,000 more this financial year, said Pushkar Limaye, Co-founder and CTO. Carnot, in which Mahindra owns 70 per cent stake, clocked a revenue of ₹23 crore in FY23. “We are looking at growing 2 times in the next 3 years getting to ₹50 crore revenue,” Limaye said.
In India, about 70 per cent of the tractor owners rent their tractors and the company is focusing on this rental entrepreneur (RE) community, Limaye said.
Rental entrepreneurs
Carnot’s IoT kits help the RE to know how much of the area has been ploughed and charge accordingly.The rental entrepreneurs can use mobile-based application for real time live tracking of their assets, exact acreages of work done, fuel status and accounting solutions. The AI model detects the farm area automatically and further statistics of the farm the extent of area, how much time it took to plough it, etc.
“They know how much land was ploughed so they can charge accordingly. Besides, it also helps prevent unauthorised work by the drivers or a side handshake small deal. It helps them keep a watch, prevents fuel theft and fuel related issues,” he said.
The company, which started selling its product overseas, has a presence in Brazil, Kenya, Bangladesh, Japan, Tanzania and we are getting queries about how we can do installation in tractors. “We have 3,500 international deployments now and most of them are from Africa. One we sold to the Government of Benin. Now we are doing 300 devices as pilot to Tanzania,” Limaye said. Also the company is eyeing the farm equipment fleet owners in the US and Europe .
Back home, Carnot’s device is also helping tractor owners to turn entrepreneurs, making them expand their fleet. It has partnered with Avanti Finance to help REs with their working capital requirements. Apart from tractors, the devices are also used in rice planters, harvesters, gensets, etc.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.