Agritech Startup Gramophone Raises INR 75 Cr; Eyes Growth Through M&A

Indore-based agritech startup Gramophone has raised INR 75 Cr (approx $10 Mn) as part of its Series B funding round. Led by Z3 Partners, the round also saw participation from existing investors Infoedge, Asha Impact and Siana Capital.

Other new investors in the round include Amit Sharma of Sunrise Group, Sumeet Kanwar of Verity, and Chona Family Office (Havmor Group).

The startup aims to use the funds to double down on its tech platform. It plans to expand geographically while pursuing inorganic growth opportunities, such as mergers and acquisitions.

“With this investment, we will double down on investing in technologies that lower costs, improve transparency and empower the local community of agri-entrepreneurs with more earning opportunities in rural areas,” cofounder Tauseef Khan said in a statement.

Founded in 2016 by Khan, Nishant Vats, and Harshit Gupta, Gramophone envisions to be a one-stop solution for all kinds of inputs for the farmers. Inputs here include seeds, fertilisers, nutrients, pesticides, and other farming equipment. It also provides standalone services such as warehousing, inventory management and call centres.

The startup currently claims to serve 1 Mn+ farmers across Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. It has further seen a 4x revenues growth over the last year and launched an output marketplace — Gram Vyapaar.

Apart from an m-commerce marketplace, Gramophone also helps farmers with crop advisory and weather information. It provides agronomic intelligence and solutions to farmers by leveraging the power of image recognition, soil science, smart crop selection and personalised information led cropping systems. This further enables the farmers to choose authentic and suitable farm inputs.

Before the recent funding round, Gramophone had raised $10 Mn in four funding rounds from 10 investors. Gramophone’s last funding round was a bridge round in 2020, where it raised INR 25 Cr (approx $3.5 Mn). Before that, it raised another $3.5 Mn in a Series A round, and a couple of small rounds.

In the market, Gramophone competes with the likes of Nofence, Krishify, Cropin, FarmLogs and SourceTrace, among others. In September this year, Gramophone’s competitor BharatAgri raised $6.5 Mn in a Series A round led by Omnivore. Recently, B2B agritech startup FarMart raised $10 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Matrix Partners India.

According to Inc42 Plus, India’s addressable agritech market potential is expected to reach $24.1 Bn by 2025. Indian startups had tapped into only $204 Mn, or 1% in 2020.