Temasek, Sofina Ventures Lead $60 Mn Funding In DeHaat

Agritech soonicorn DeHaat has raised another $60 Mn in a Series E round of funding, led by Sofina Ventures and Temasek. Existing backers RTP Global Partners, Prosus Ventures and Lightrock India also have participated in the new round. 

DeHaat has raised a total of $106 Mn in its Series E funding round, having raised $46 Mn in October from the same set of investors. With the latest round, the startup has raised $300 Mn from investors.

Founded in 2012 by Amrendra Singh, Shyam Sundar, Adarsh Srivastav and Shashank Kumar, Patna and Gurugram-based DeHaat offers end-to-end agricultural services to farmers. These include the distribution of high-quality agri-inputs, customised farm advisory, access to financial services and market linkages for selling their produce.

The soonicorn has built a last-mile supply chain in more than 110K+ villages across 150+ districts of India through its network of 10K+ micro-entrepreneurs. DeHaat claims to serve more than 1.5 Mn farmers across 11 agricultural states in India.

To provide end-to-end services, it has onboarded 2,000+ agribusinesses including input manufacturers, FMCG players, banks, insurance partners and bulk output exports.

Commenting on the development, Shashank Kumar, cofounder and CEO, DeHaat said that there has been 60X growth of DeHaat over the last 40 months, adding that the startup has a clear path to profitability. Kumar added that almost 70% of the startup’s last fundraise – where it raised $115 Mn in October 2021 – is still in the bank.

“We are very well capitalised at this point in time and we aim to leverage this status to consolidate our growth towards efficiency & profitability,” said the CEO, adding that DeHaat aims to break even in the next 12 months.

It is prudent to mention that DeHaat reported a consolidated loss after tax of INR 54.1 Cr in FY21, a 2.98X increase from INR 18.1 Cr in FY20. At the same time, the startup’s revenue from operations increased by 2.6X to INR 358.2 Cr in FY21 from INR 125.1 Cr in FY20. 

The agritech’s expenses almost tripled to INR 415.1 Cr in FY21 from INR 143.4 Cr in FY20 as well. DeHaat has not filed its financial statements for the financial year 2021-22 (FY22) yet.

With the fundraise, the agritech startup has inched closer to a unicorn valuation. Inc42 had exclusively reported in September that DeHaat was looking to raise around $100 Mn in the next funding round to achieve the said unicorn valuation.

When reached out by Inc42, a DeHaat spokesperson stated that the valuation with the current round remains in the ballpark of $700-800 Mn. 

For now, the agritech’s valuation remains around the same as its biggest competitor Ninjacart, which was valued at $812 Mn during its last funding round. 

While farming and agriculture are a $300 Bn industry in India, the country does not have an agritech unicorn; given that agriculture is largely unorganised as an industry in India, agritech startups are still a new phenomenon.

Despite this, the agritech sector is set to reach a size of $24 Bn in 2025, with market linkage emerging as the biggest sub-sector within agritech.