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ReshaMandi, an agritech startup digitising India’s silk supply chain, on Thursday announced that it has raised $1.7 million (Rs 12.25 crore) in seed funding. The round was led by Omnivore and Strive Ventures with participation from Axilor Ventures and Supply Chain Labs (Lumis). 

Founded in April 2020 by Mayank Tiwari (CEO), Saurabh Agarwal (CTO), and Utkarsh Apoorva (CBO) ReshaMandi is building a full-stack platform for organising the silk supply chain, providing services including quality testing, technical advisory, high-quality inputs, and market linkages at each node of the silk supply chain.

According to the press release, the founders’ plan is to use this funding to strengthen their digital platform and expand beyond Karnataka, establishing a presence in other important Indian silk hubs such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Talking about the new development, Mayank Tiwari, Co-founder and CEO of ReshaMandi said,

“We are excited to bring the first technology-led disruption to India’s USD 10 billion silk industry. Our goal is to reduce the import of silk by helping Indian farmers improve their production capacity and quality.”

In less than a year since inception, the startup claims to have reached an ARR of $ 30 million. The startup is working with more than 2300 farmers and has IoT devices deployed across 10 rearing centers. Recently, ReshaMandi was named the Best Emerging Social Enterprise of 2020 by Business Mint.

Commenting on the investment, Subhadeep Sanyal, Partner at Omnivore, stated,

“Despite India being the second-largest producer of silk globally, the industry is still unorganised and in urgent need of technology interventions across the supply chain. With sericulture farmers having very high smartphone penetration, it is an opportune time for a digital platform like ReshaMandi to address the existing inefficiencies.”

Siddharth Verma, Investment Manager at Strive Ventures, added, “ReshaMandi is enabling Indian sericulture farmers and other key players in the value chain compete with the Chinese mass silk manufacturing hubs. Through mobile apps, IoT devices and tech-enabled grading systems, ReshaMandi is enabling farmers to increase production, lower wastage, improve quality and get access to better pricing.”