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Agritech startup Produze has raised $2.6 Mn in its seed funding round led by Accel.  

All In Capital, Thirukumaran Nagarajan and Kartheeswaran KK from Ninjacart, Anilkumar SG from Sammunati, Pawan Gupta and Abhishek Sharma from Fashinza, Pushkar Mukewar from Drip Capital, Angad Kikla, Naisheel Verdhan and Rahul Gill from CityMall, Ranjith Mukundan from Stellapps and Pravin Jadhav from DhanHQ also participated in the funding round.

Produze plans to utilise the funds to beef up distribution and sourcing capabilities and also, digitise the entire cross-border supply chain. 

“We are excited to partner with Produze team to help digitize the global agri-trade. We feel Produze technology and supply chain capabilities can help improve the selection of fresh farm produce for customers at more affordable prices while compensating the producers fairly,” said Pratik Agarwal, principal at Accel.

Founded in 2022 by Ben Mathew, Gaurav Agrawal, Rakesh Sasidharan and Emil Soman, Produze helps agriculture farmers directly sell their produce to international retailers and earn better profit margins. Meanwhile, it also helps international retailers in getting fresh produce at better quality and competitive prices.

“Cross border supply chain for agri produce is fragmented with several intermediaries and poorly managed processes, which creates inconsistency in quality, inefficient prices and wastage thus, leading to loss in value for agri producers, retailers and distributors. At Produze, we are enabling seamless commerce between agri producers and retailers to return this wasted value back to them,” said Ben Mathew, cofounder and CEO, Produze. 

Produze’s founding team holds experience in agritech and B2C sectors. Earlier on, Mathew and Agrawal were working with agritech startup Ninjacart whilst Soman founded a startup called Dockup. Similarly, Sasidharan and Mathew also founded a B2C marketplace platform for home-cooked food.

In the agritech sector, it faces competition from the likes of Eeki Foods, AGRIM, Arya.Ag, WayCool and Vegrow, among others.

According to an Inc42 report, India’s agritech sector was pegged at $24 Bn in 2020 while another report states that the country’s agritech industry will touch $35 Bn mark by 2025.