Here Are The Five Agritech Startups Joining Gastrotope’s First Cohort

Gastrotope, the agrifood startup accelerator founded by Taizo Son’s Mistletoe, Rajesh Sawhney, and Infobridge, has picked five startups for its first cohort.

Founded in September 2017, Gastrotope was launched during the Inc42 and Mistletoe’s Farm To Fork Conclave in Bengaluru. Gastrotope is a focussed accelerator that aims on bridging the gap between the farms and the food tech industry and envisions on catalysing new innovations in the food tech sector of the country.

It aims at investing in startups that would add to the theme of Farm to Fork ecosystem. These startups would add contribute in various parts of the value chain, starting with the farmers and moving to food transportation, the processing and delivery system to and ultimately, to the customers.

In line with its plans, the accelerator received 150 applications and has selected five startups to help them to optimise their business model, achieve product-market fit, and execute a scalable growth strategy.

Rajesh Sawhney, CEO and founder of GSF India said, “The five shortlisted startups embody our intent to create and nurture a true ‘Farm to Fork’ ecosystem in India. All of them share two common threads: an exceptional leadership team and a focused and scalable business idea, which we believe are vital ingredients necessary to make a meaningful impact in a sector as huge and diverse as agriculture.”

The programme includes a one-on-one mentoring session with 30 mentors, provides a networking opportunities, funding investment advice, strategy-and-skill development.

Naho Shigeta, CEO of Infobridge Holdings said, “The overwhelming response to our accelerator program demonstrates the keen interest of the Indian startup community in making a difference to agriculture in the country. The Gastrotope team is now looking forward to working with and enabling these five startups in building a strong and sustainable business.”

Here Are The Five Selected Startups:

Brown Foods: Chandigarh-based Lifenectar Health Care Pvt Ltd under the brand name My Flour Bag was founded in 2017 and is creating next-generation packaged food products. Using data analytics and AI, they make personalized packaged food products, using the healthiest ingredients sourced directly from farmers and deliver fresh at doorsteps, with complete transparency across the supply chain.

Credible: Mumbai-based Agzaken Risk Management (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. runs Credible since 2018 and has created agriculture-specific risk management tools (AI-driven) for financial institutions and policymakers.  It combines various data sources such as remote sensing, Agri-commodities pricing and transactions data to provide unique insights at a farm or farmer level.

Fasal: Bengaluru-based Wolkus Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd runs as agritech platform Fasal. Launched in 2018, Fasal is an AI-powered IoT platform for agriculture ecosystem that records a variety of growing conditions on the farms, makes on-farm predictions and delivers actionable insights and recommendations to farmers, thereby helping them in increasing productivity.

Occipital Tech: Mumbai-based Occipital Technologies began its operations in 2017 and automates the grading and sorting process of fruits and vegetables by using computer vision based on shape, size, colour and surface patterns.

Triton Foodworks: Delhi-based Triton Foodworks Pvt Ltd was founded in 2014 as a new age, precision farming company, which creates ideal conditions for growing pesticide-free fruits and vegetables.

Agritech: The Market And Enablers

an IBEF report suggests that the country’s Gross Value Added (GVA) from the agritech sector is estimated to have grown at 3% in FY18.

In agritech, we have investors like Omnivore Partners, Future Venture Capital Company Ltd. (FVCCL), IDG Venture, Accel Partners, Aspada Investments, IvyCap Ventures, Unitus Seed Fund, Rabo Equity Advisors, SAIF Partners, Villgro Innovations Foundation, Qualcomm Ventures and IDFC, among others.

The income of the farmers in India is a key focus area for the government and the Union Budget 2018 further reiterated the same. The current government has an ambitious aim, that of doubling the average income of farmers by 2022.

Both the central and state governments are proactively pursuing policies to improve the lives of farmers in the country. With all these developments in place, agritech has now become the buzzword in the Indian startup ecosystem, which currently has over 200+ agritech startups.