The company said the new round will help expand its ability to connect farmers and FPOs with buyers nationally.
Grain commerce platform Arya.ag for farmers to sell their produce post-harvest on Monday announced it has raised a $19.8 million commitment from the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to guarantee a debt facility for the company’s agri-commerce subsidiary Aryatech. The incoming round follows the $29 million equity funding raised by Arya.ag last quarter. The company said the debt will help expand its ability to connect farmers and FPOs with buyers nationally.
Speaking on the investment, Prasanna Rao, Co-Founder and CEO of Arya.ag said it will enable the company to connect more farmers and FPOs to buyers much beyond their existing networks creating a more efficient and inclusive agricultural marketplace.
The startup enables farmers and their organisations to decide when and to whom they would want to sell their produce post-harvest by offering access to farmgate-level storage and finance. Currently present across 60 per cent of Indian districts, covering over 11,000 agri-warehouses.
“DFC is pleased to support AryaTech in expanding its growing agri-tech platform connecting small farmers and farmer producer organisations to buyers in underserved regions of India. This transaction aligns with our goal of supporting economic growth and prosperity in communities across India,” said James Polan, DFC’s Vice President of Health & Agribusiness.
Arya.ag said it aggregates and stores $3 billion of grain annually while enabling disbursement of over $1.5 billion of loans to small-holder farmers, their organisations and other stakeholders. With a growth of 77 per cent over the last year, the startup said it reported a profit before tax of Rs 22 crore in FY24.
The Indian agritech market is likely to more than double from $4 billion in 2022 to $34 billion in 2027 while the food crop segment alone is predicted to rise from $3 billion to $25 billion by 2027, according to India Brand Equity Foundation.
Content retrieved from: https://www.financialexpress.com/business/sme-agritech-startup-arya-ag-raises-19-8-million-from-us-development-finance-corporation-3651021/.
