BharatAgri Shuts Operations Due To Funding Crunch

SUMMARY

While BharatAgri raised some funding from its existing investors last year to achieve profitability, it failed to get new funding to sustain its operations

The startup was looking to raise $6 Mn to $8 Mn in a fresh funding round

The Bengaluru-based startup offered AI-powered agronomy services to farmers to help increase their incomes through systematic implementation of scientific farming techniques

Agritech startup BharatAgri has shut operations due to a funding crunch. Its cofounder and CEO Siddharth Dialani told Inc42 that while the startup raised some funding from its existing investors last year to achieve profitability, it failed to get new funding to sustain its operations.

“While we had achieved positive unit economics, the overhead costs were still high because of which we could not achieve complete profitability,” Dialani said.

BharatAgri was looking to raise $6 Mn to $8 Mn in a fresh funding round to sustain its operations. But, as per the cofounder, investors believed that the startup’s TAM (total addressable market) was not big enough to achieve the expected scale.

“We could not attract investment for our business model. Even though the unit economics were good, the scale was not good enough to attract large investments,” Dialani said.

Entrackr first reported that BharatAgri has shut shop.

Founded in 2017 by Dialani and Sai Gole, BharatAgri helped farmers increase their productivity with its technology solutions. It offered AI-powered agronomy services to farmers to help increase their incomes through systematic implementation of scientific farming techniques.

Later, it also added an ecommerce platform to its offerings for selling fertilisers, seeds, farming equipment, crop kits, and gardening kits.

In 2023, the startup raised $4.3 Mn in its Series A round led by Arkam Ventures, along with participation from Capria Ventures and existing investors such as India Quotient, 021 Capital, and Omnivore. Overall, it raised a total funding of over $14 Mn in its lifetime.

At the time of the shutdown, the startup had about 37 employees on its payroll. The cofounder said that BharatAgri will return the leftover capital to its existing investors and provide severance packages to the employees.

On the financial front, BharatAgri’s operating revenue grew almost 78% to INR 4.8 Cr in FY24 from INR 2.7 Cr in the previous fiscal year. It narrowed its net loss by 14% to INR 22 Cr from INR 25.6 Cr in FY23. The startup did not file its financial numbers for FY25.

With this, BharatAgri has joined the likes of BeepKart, Otipy, Bllip and CodeParrot in the list of startups that have shut operations in 2025 so far.