India’s Lightbox invests in agritech player
Indian agritech startup WayCool Foods raised $32 million in a Series C funding round led by Lightbox Ventures.
Netherlands-based development finance institution FMO and existing investor LGT Lightstone Aspada, an impact fund formerly associated with the Soros Economic Development Fund, also took part in the round. Previously, WayCool Foods received $16.9 million in Series B funding that included equity and debt. The current round also includes debt provided by InnoVen Capital.
WayCool Foods, founded in 2015 by Sanjay Dasari (pictured center), is a fresh produce supplier to food-based businesses like restaurants and bakeries. It also sells branded versions of these products through third-party retailers. The company claims to digitize the procurement, distribution and delivery process in order to supply ethically sourced products for over 8,000 enterprise clients in south India.
Recently, it also started an outreach program aiming to train farmers in remote villages on how to use technology to improve farm output. The new funding will be used to automate supply chain processes, improve analytics, expand the product range, and extend the outreach program.
“The company is also highly impactful on the social side, as it sources its produce from over 35,000 smallholder farmers that benefit from higher prices and improved yields. In addition to this, it provides employment to over 900 people,” said Linda Broekhuizen, CIO at FMO.
Apart from WayCool, Ninjacart - which is backed by Tiger Global Management - DayBox, Crofarm, FreshoKartz and CropIn also offer farm-to-table services to enterprise customers in other parts of the country. Last year, WayCool acquired FarmTaaza, a start-up that was operating in the same space.
Lightbox, which recently closed its third fund totalling $209.3 million, has invested in online jeweller Melorra, consumer good delivery start-up Dunzo and pharmacy retailer Generico in recent months.
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