Farm inputs marketplace startup Faarms has raised $2 Mn in its seed funding round backed by Koh Boon Hwee, the founding partner of Credence Capital, a Singapore-based private equity fund focused on investing in Southeast Asian startups, as well as Dr Cornelius Boersch, founder of Swiss investor Conny & Co, among other angel investors.
Founded by Alok Duggal and Taranbir Singh, Faarms is primarily an input procurement marketplace that delivers seeds, fertilisers, chemicals and other farm agri products to the farmgate with cashless payment options.
The company will look to expand its footprint in northeastern, central and southern states of India; add new product segments and services for the farmers and enhance its multilingual content-to-commerce platform making it easier for farmers to access information.
Faarms is looking to make a dent in the digital economy by improving financial inclusion and digital literacy among farmers through an on-ground team. The startup currently claims to have 8 Lakh subscribers, with users spread across 20,000 villages.
Besides the marketplace, it also operates a knowledge-exchange platform to offer best practice guidance for dairy and poultry farming, expert advice from scientists and progressive farmers. The platform offers multilingual videos covering a wide range of topics related to agricultural products and practices.
Faarms is the second farm input marketplace to bag funding this week, following the $2.7 Mn Pre-Series A funding round raised by Krishify from Omidyar Network India, Ankur Capital, and existing investor Orios Ventures. Country Delight cofounders Nitin Kaushal and Chakradhar Gade also invested in Krishify.
Companies such as Faarms, Krishify and other input marketplaces compete with agritech startups such as DeHaat, BharatAgri, BigHaat, Gramophone among others that have also made inroads into the farm advisory and input management market. These models have attracted plenty of VC funds in the past few years — over $467 Mn has been invested in agritech startups between 2014 and 2020, as per the Inc42 Plus India’s Agritech Market Landscape Report, 2021.
According to Inc42 Plus data, the addressable agritech market potential of India is expected to touch $24.1 Bn by 2025, out of which India’s agritech startups have tapped just $204 Mn in 2020, which is less than 1%.
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