Sofina leads $46m round for India agtech player DeHaat

RTP Global, Prosus Ventures, and Lightrock India also participated, according to Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings cited by local media. Lightrock, an impact investor formerly known as LGT Lightstone Aspada, referenced one of these stories, published by Moneycontrol, on its website.

Sofina and Lightrock led a USD 115m Series D for DeHaat in October 2021 at a reported valuation of more than USD 500m. This was described at the time as India’s largest-ever agtech funding round. Other investors included RTP, Prosus, Temasek Holdings, Sequoia Capital India, and FMO. Nine months earlier, Prosus led a USD 30m Series C.

Founded in 2012, DeHaat was among the first wave of Indian agtech start-ups, alongside Arya, Agrostar, and CropIn. The company’s business model was like that of many of its peers: bringing inputs and information to fragmented farming communities and sourcing produce for distribution.

DeHaat and Arya rose to prominence as farmer-facing marketplaces – Arya closed a USD 60m Series C in January with backing from investors including Lightrock. They were followed by downstream marketplaces that mainly serve retail, restaurants, and individuals, specialist financial technology start-ups, and other advisory players.

DeHaat’s core offering is a B2B marketplace that facilitates distribution, operational advisory services, access to financial services, and market linkages. Crops are shipped directly to commodity bulk buyers, including retail chains, e-commerce players, large fast-moving consumer goods companies, and small to medium-sized food processors.

The company currently operates in Bihai, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal, serving a network of more than 1m farmers. The goal is to reach 5m farmers by 2024. At the time of the Series D, DeHaat claimed to work with 3,000 micro-entrepreneurs, including last-mile delivery drivers, and have about 850 in-house staff.

Some industry participants have criticised the scale-at-any-cost mindset of many marketplaces. Speaking to AVCJ earlier this year, Hemendra Mathur, a venture partner at deep-tech-focused Bharat Innovation Fund and an advisor to numerous investors in agtech, questioned the sustainability of these models. He said that none have moved from positive gross margins to positive EBITDA.

Investors in DeHaat and Arya observed that both companies are generating strong unit economics. DeHaat’s ability to work directly with farmers and maintain multiple touchpoints across advisory services, finance, and market linkages were highlighted as a competitive advantage. However, Indian media reported in August that the company was laying off staff to reduce costs.

Around the same time, investor sentiment on India agtech was emboldened by the sale of Eruvaka, which develops pond health sensors and automated precision shrimp feeders, to Netherlands-based Nutreco at a valuation of USD 40m-USD 50m. This enabled early backer Omnivore to register the country’s largest agtech exit to date.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Expansion
• Technology
• Industrials
• India
• Sofina
• LGT Lightstone Aspada
• Prosus Ventures
• RTP Global
• Agriculture
• Growth capital