How Farmley’s B2B Pedigree Helped Build An INR 350 Cr D2C Snack Brand

By the time his Indian D2C company started trending on Instagram, Akash Sharma, the cofounder and CEO of Farmley, had already made the hardest decision of his entrepreneurial life: walking away from a INR 350 Cr B2B business, betting everything on a brand the market didn’t even know yet.

However, let’s go back to where it started, because Farmley didn’t begin as the consumer brand that we know; it started as a solution to a supply chain problem “We were not trying to be a brand. We were trying to fix a broken system,” cofounder Sharma told Inc42. 

Back in 2017, Sharma, an IIT Delhi graduate, was clear about one thing: Indian farmers, especially those in the dry fruits and nuts ecosystem, were getting a raw deal. 

Coming from an agriculture background, he knew the key pain points of farmers i.e. middlemen ate into margins, quality was patchy, and buyers didn’t know where their almonds or cashews were really coming from. There was no traceability, no trust.

As a result, Sharma ditched his job to start Farmley as a B2B venture. At the time, he and his team traded in bulk, primarily with ecommerce firms and modern retail, sourcing dry fruits from growers in India and importers abroad.

But almost right away, they noticed something odd.

“We were dealing in volume,” the Farmley CEO recalled, “but the quality gap was obvious. If you wanted good almonds or cashews, you had to control the post-harvest processing. And that’s where most of the market was broken.”

So the startup decided to fix it. Over the next few years, Farmley built five processing units, each one placed near a sourcing zone or an import hub. If almonds were coming in from California or Afghanistan, the startup built close to the port. If cashews were grown in Maharashtra, you went close to the fields.

As the startup established its own processing units near the farm gates, it was able to source the best quality of bread, food, and nuts directly from local growers, or import them directly from international producers for products typically brought into India. 

“Most of the imported items in India require a certain level of processing before they can be consumed. To address this, we set up processing sites such as for almonds, cashews, etc, in strategically chosen locations based on proximity to either cultivation areas or import hubs,” Sharma said.

This was followed by the startup offering a layer of value-added services for the same set of wholesale clients it had been supplying to.

It gave Farmley a major edge: tight control over quality and inventory.

For a while, this B2B setup worked well. By 2019, the company raised $2 Mn to double down on the model. The revenues were also strong, about INR 350 Cr of GMV in FY20, Sharma claimed.

But the unit economics were always fragile. “In B2B, customers change suppliers for a 0.5% price difference. There’s no loyalty. No pricing power. You’re just another manufacturer.”

That was a major problem for the startup, as even with all the infrastructure they’d built, Farmley was still a replaceable vendor in someone else’s supply chain.

In FY21, the company was generating INR 194.8 Cr, and this grew to INR 203.8 Cr in the following year, but before falling to INR 169.8 Cr in FY23, as Farmley transitioned from B2B to  D2C. 

The startup had booked a revenue of INR 230.6 Cr in FY24 as a completely D2C brand, while posting a net loss of INR 26.5 Cr. 

Farmley’s All-Or-Nothing Pivot 

In 2019, the Covid pandemic swept across India and the world. Suddenly, there was also a broader shift in eating habits. More people were snacking between meals, and health-focused consumers were moving from fried foods to nuts, seeds and flavoured makhana.

At the same time, Farmley also decided to pivot. 

Sharma said that the startup already had built strong backend capabilities and a reliable supply chain over the past four and a half years. The main focus shifted to disrupting existing brands and building our own customer base.

“For us, the challenge was more on the branding and consumer-facing side, as the supply infrastructure was already well-established,” he further said. 

In early 2021, the startup pivoted D2C, while shutting down its B2B channel completely. In the D2C space, Farmley initially started as an ecommerce-first brand and then gradually ventured into quick commerce. However, the pivot wasn’t easy.

“We had to ask ourselves—are we ready to give up a INR 350 Cr B2B business and bet on something new?” Sharma said. 

At the time, Farmley restarted small, just an ecommerce site with a few SKUs, along with the presence on ecommerce marketplaces.

However, the rise of quick commerce platforms like Zepto, Blinkit, and Swiggy Instamart, gave the startup an additional push. “Snacking is an impulse category. So quick commerce was tailor-made for us.”

According to Sharma, quick commerce was a boost, as when it comes to snacking, quick commerce is the most accurate format. 

“Once our presence in quick commerce was reasonably established across major platforms, we began shifting focus toward developing our offline presence,” he added. 

Today, the startup is present in over 15,000 retail counters across India.

Alongside its domestic expansion, it also entered select international markets like the US, Canada, and Australia, particularly regions with a significant Indian diaspora and strong demand for the categories we operate in.

Behind The Scenes: Factories, SKUs And No Burn

What makes Farmley stand out isn’t just how the product looks or tastes, says Sharma. It’s the way everything works behind the scenes.

Each Farmley factory focuses on a specific group of products. Their supply chain is spread out, raw materials are sorted, stored, and processed in different units based on what’s needed where. This setup helps them stay efficient and flexible.

They also track every product closely. Farmley constantly runs data checks to see what’s selling fast. Their 15 best-selling products are always available across all platforms. If something isn’t selling well, they stop making it quickly instead of holding on to slow-moving stock.

According to Sharma, what makes them different is its ability to consistently prepare high-quality dry fruits across seasons and the focus on recipes and innovation.

“But majorly, our distribution is strong. We’re already present across all major channels — offline, online, government networks, and international markets. Our distribution is well-established, and for any peer to replicate that reach would require significant capital and time investment,” says Sharma.

This focus on discipline and smart operations is what, according to Sharma, helps them stay profitable. 

“We always work with safety around profitability,” says Akash. “We don’t overspend on marketing. We keep control over pricing. Even on quick commerce platforms, we decide our own MRP.”

Notably, Farmley now claims to have clocked a revenue of INR 370 Cr in FY25, and is claiming to be EBITDA positive. 

Farmley has raised about $55 Mn since it started. Including a $2 Mn seed round in 2020 from Omnivore and Insitor, a $6 Mn Series A in August 2022 led by DSG Consumer Partners and Alkemi Growth Capital, and a $6.7 Mn pre-Series B in December 2023 led by the BC Jindal Group.

Most recently, it raised $40 Mn in a Series C funding round led by L Catterton.

But there’s growing competition from large FMCG players as well as those of Farmley’s ilk i.e new-age disruptors. Startups like Happilo, Ministry of Nuts, and even Paper Boat Foods are direct rivals in the healthy snacking segment.

As Sharma explains, the company encounters different competitors across its various product categories. Yet, in the broader startup space, Farmley has not faced direct, one-to-one competition, at least not yet.

That said, established FMCG players such as Haldiram’s, Britannia, HUL, and ITC have recently made strategic moves into this space. Farmley’s existing supply chain moat, built through its B2B experience, is being tested against the scale and distribution muscle of these incumbents.

Notably, HUL’s recent D2C push, marked by its acquisition of a 51% stake in OZiva and another 51% in Wellbeing Nutrition, adds a new layer of competition, further intensifying the race in this evolving market. 

All in all, after India, the US is the startup’s key overseas market for now. The hero product being flavoured makhana. For now, the startup sells through ecommerce in the country; retail will come later. Other markets include Canada, Australia and Singapore.

As for Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, etc, Sharma says while it’s on the radar. But not immediately.

Back home, the startup continues working with about 5,000 farmers for now. “We’re not chasing new categories for the sake of it,” Sharma claimed. “We listen to consumers, watch trends, but also look for long-term formats that make sense.”

Edited By Nikhil Subramaniam

Correction Note: May 17, 2025 | 23:00

• An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that Farmley was featured on Shark Tank India. The error has been rectified