Noida-based integrated grain commerce platform Arya.ag on Thursday said it acquired Prakshep, Bengaluru-based agriculture data science startup, for an undisclosed sum. As part of the deal, Prakshep’s entire team would join Arya.ag.
With this acquisition, Arya.ag will bring cutting-edge AI/ML capabilities to farm digitisation, crop monitoring, quality assaying, and surveillance. It will also help Arya.ag to further deepen its relationship with other agri-chain stakeholders like FPOs, processors and corporates, banks, and insurance companies.
Leveraging its technology stack, Arya.ag has created a digital identity for over 10,000 warehouses across India on its platform and has built transparency at all levels—from aggregation to storage, finance, and commerce.
“Through this acquisition, Arya.ag will also increase the traceability and visibility of the produce—right from the farm’s place,” Prasanna Rao, MD and Co-founder, Arya.ag, told YS.
“Prakshep’s tech-led proposition finds a natural fit as it enables a digital identity for every grain that traverses the value chain and builds in transparency in terms of where it was grown and the journey it has made. The aligned values of sustainability, climate smart agriculture, and inclusive economic growth have brought us together,” Prasanna said in the release.
Arya.ag connects sellers and buyers of agri products, providing complete assurance on quantity, quality, and payments. Founded in 2016, Prakshep’s distinct digital offerings will add to Arya.ag’s deep-tech capability to provide traceability, transparency, and quality assurance for seamless commodity commerce.
The Noida startup will now hold the database in agriculture, including boundaries, crop activities, health, and yield valuation, to its existing repository of storage and grain value chain database.
At present, Arya.ag is developing a public agri blockchain ledger, where Prakshep’s deep-tech experience and expertise will add further farm-level integration and pre-load extensive historical farm activity data to Arya.ag’s blockchain ledger, the company said in a statement.
The startup aims to strengthen its relationship with its existing base of almost a million farmers and 500 FPOs by providing farm assessment and crop health monitoring via AI integration, remote sensing, and satellite imaging.
Prakshep’s acquisition also aligns with Arya’s focus on climate-smart agricultural models with a reduced carbon footprint. Prakshep’s models claim to have facilitated a 45 percent reduction in crop damage, use of chemicals (40 percent), water usage (35 percent), and GHG emissions (30 percent).
“Arya, as a market leader, provides us with an opportunity to create an impact in the lives of our smallholder farmers on a much larger scale and value. Through this partnership, we will be able to provide our users many more new offerings based on data, scientific research, and analytics, creating trust and transparency in all our transactions,” said Avijeet Singh, CEO, Prakshep.
