AgroStar Secured $70 Million in its Series D Financing Round

 

AgroStar Startup Funding News

The omnichannel agricultural market for advisory services and trade AgroStar has secured $70 million in its Series D financing round led by Evolvence, Schroders Capital, Hero Enterprise, and CDC.

The new round came after 33 months for AgroStar. Bertelsmann India had led a $27 million Series C round within the Pune-based company in March of 2019. The new money will be used to expand business and product offerings and hire and enhance multichannel strategies, stated the company in the press release.

It was launched in 2013 as a missed-call knowledge program for agriculturalists. AgroStar has evolved into an all-stack platform for farmers and offers farm advisory services and agri inputs using a combination of offline and online channels. AgroStar has more than 1,000 offline touchpoints in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, as well as other regions.

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AgroStar plans to install at least 5,000 touchpoints like this over the coming years. According to its website, its Android-only application has more than 5 million downloads, where farmers share their knowledge and can purchase authentic agricultural inputs. The company's offerings have been limited to content and commerce up to the present time, but it's expected to start lending shortly.

Although the company has yet to announce financial results for FY21, its operating earnings jumped by 80% to 153.69 million in FY20, which was just 85.56 crore for FY19. In terms of revenues, the losses increased by 78% to 93.81 million in FY20, up from the 52.82 million in its previous budget period (FY19).

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It is among the largest rounds of funding for Agritech startups in India. The month of October was when Patna, along with Gurugram-based DeHaat, were able to secure 115 million in the Series D round, which was the largest amount ever raised by an Indian agricultural tech startup in one time.

Tiger Global, which Ninjacart backs, also received a sum of $90m during its series C round. However, Waycool has launched an additional round and is expected to raise more existing and new investors. Entrackr reported exclusive news of this on the 13th of October. AgroStar is competing with Unnati, Gramophone, DeHaat and other companies. Unnati also has raised the sum of $8.5 million from Incofin Investment Management, NabVentures and Orios.