Agritech Startup WayCool Foods Acquires IP Of GramworkX

Tamil Nadu-based agritech startup, WayCool Foods has acquired the IP of Bengaluru-based startup, GramworkX. According to a media report by The Economic Times, as a part of the transaction, the agritech startup will invest $1 Mn in the company now and another $1 Mn in the following years.

In the next three to six months, GramworkX platform will integrate with WayCool. GramworkX is a cloud-based smart farm resource management tool, which aids farmers in guiding, optimising and monitoring water utilisation. 

It quantifies and provides analytical insights into water consumption patterns across fields and soil types and provides data support.

“We already have a farm management tool that we use to provide insights to farmers based on data collected from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and other organisations but the GramworkX platform will enable more precise prediction and analysis,” said, Karthik Jayaraman, cofounder, WayCool Foods.

The company stated that this is particularly beneficial when it comes to high value crops such as pomegranate.

“We provide crop-specific data and solutions as per the geographical location and soil type. We also have a feature of image-based disease detection,” said KA Gopalakrishnan, cofounder of GramworkX. 

Established in 2015 by Jayaraman and Sanjay Dasari, WayCool Foods renders fresh produce  fruits, vegetables and various other products to local shops as well as retail outlets. The startup claims to offer staples, farm sourced-fruits and vegetables, and dairy products to more than 8K clientele. 

The agritech startup is reportedly planning to launch its tech stack as a SaaS-based solution providing an end-to-end solution for companies and address specific concerns–farm management, shop floor management, logistics management, a B2B platform or as a B2C service.

“These were all issues that we needed to address and we built our technology around it. Within the next six months, we are looking to provide these as SaaS solutions to other players to help solve various issues that these companies may encounter,” Jayaraman further said.

WayCool lately invested $7.5 Mn in SV Agri. It also secured $117 Mn in Series D funding round led by LightBox, LightRock, FMO, Redwood Equity, Lightsmith, Gawa Capital and IFC. Prior to this, it raised $5.5 Mn in debt financing through the US-based Development Finance Corporation. 

In the agritech industry, it is competing with some of the big players– Ninjakart, Crofarm, Origo Commodities, and Agrostar. According to an Inc42 Plus report, India’s agritech sector is estimated to reach $24.1 Bn by 2025. 

The country’s agritech sector has come a long way with 43 startups in 2013 to more than 1000 startups in 2020, driven by the rise in rural internet penetration, rise in post-harvest and supply chain losses, growing investors’ interest in the sector, lack of finance and high-quality inputs for farmers.