Agritech Startup Gramophone Raises INR 25 Cr In Round Led By Siana Capital

Indore-based agritech startup Gramophone has raised INR 25 Cr ($3.4 Mn) in a funding round led by Siana Capital, a Bengaluru-headquartered venture capital fund. 

The company’s existing investors Info Edge, Asha Impact and Better Capital also participated in the funding round. The new funds would be used for customer acquisition, also to further Gramophone’s efforts in building a full-stack platform that can help maximise the incomes of farmers. 

Founded in 2016 by IIT & IIM Ahmedabad graduates Tauseef Ahmad Khan, Nishant Vats Mahatre, Harshit Gupta and Ashish Rajan Singh, Gramophone claims to be building an intelligent farming platform, where farmers can get access to a wide variety of inputs and implements, such as seeds, fertilisers, nutrients, pesticides, and other farming equipment. 

Additionally, the company claims to be helping farmers with crop advisory, weather information coupled with the best products to grow. Gramophone claims that its intervention in the sector has helped its farmer customers gain up to 20% cost-benefit through the company’s inputs marketplace, and increase their yields by 40% by acting upon Gramophone’s advisory. 

“We have seen strong farmer adoption with a YOY 15-20% increase in the wallet share of the customers,” said Tauseef Khan, cofounder and CEO, Gramophone. 

“We will provide a holistic solution for maximising farmers’ incomes by enhancing expertise around agronomic Intelligence for input business and building capabilities to provide market linkages and access to credit to the farmers,” he added. 

Gramophone claims to have positively impacted the lives of 5,50,000 farmers, helping them increase their income by adopting improved farming practices. 

“We’re excited to double down on our investment in Gramophone and proud of the team’s ability to deliver 100%+ growth this year, supporting smallholding farmers through a tough Kharif cycle amid the nationwide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Aditi Gupta, principal for investments from Asha Impact. 

Before the recent funding round, Gramophone had raised $4.5 Mn in three funding rounds from 10 investors. Its last funding round was a Series A funding round last year, where it raised $3.5 Mn. The round was led by Indian publicly listed online classifieds company Info Edge. 

Recent months have seen several Indian agritech startups in their early or growth stages raise funding. Earlier this month, Noida-based agritech startup Arya raised $21 Mn in its Series B funding round led by fintech-focussed venture capital firm Quona Capital.

Arya provides post-harvest services across the agricultural value chain, including warehousing, warehouse receipt financing, rural storage discovery, collateral management and market linkages. In October, Pune-based BharatAgri and Gurugram-based Origo also raised funding. 

According to data in an Inc42 Plus playbook titled, Farming 3.0: India’s Mission Agritech, from 2014 till the first half of 2020, Indian agritech startups have raised $467 Mn in funding. Further, there are estimated to be more than 1,000 agritech startups in India and the addressable market potential is worth $24.1 Bn. However, agritech startups’ penetration in the country’s overall agritech sector is just 1% as of today.