India agtech start-up DeHaat closes Series E on $60m

Filings made with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in October indicated that DeHaat had raised USD 45.8m with Sofina taking the lead. RTP Global, Prosus Ventures, and Lightrock India were identified as supporting investors. This is the company’s third funding round in two years, following a USD 30m Series C and a USD 115m Series D. These were led by Prosus and Sofina and Lightrock, respectively.

DeHaat was founded in 2012 by Amrendra Singh, Shyam Sundar Singh, Adarsh Srivastav, and Shashank Kumar. It 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, specialist financial technology start-ups, and other advisory players.

Agtech appears to be moving up a level in terms of the amount of capital raised and the active role played by mainstream investors. For example, DeHaat’s Series C represented Prosus’ debut in the space. It has since backed three more marketplaces.

One of the firm’s prerequisites is that marketplaces continuously engage farmers through advisory services. This is in addition to aggregating supply for downstream sale and building trust with farmers by cultivating relationships with other stakeholders in supply chains, such as local store owners who provide inputs.

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.

It claims to serve more than 1.5m farmers across 11 states through a last-mile supply chain that encompasses 110,000 villages in over 150 districts. There is a dedicated digital platform that integrates aggregation and last-mile delivery, leveraging a network of 10,000 micro-entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, DeHaat works with 2,000 agribusiness groups, including input manufacturers, bulk output exporters, and fast moving consumer goods companies. There are also banking and insurance partners that use the company’s platform to get direct access to farmers.

“60x growth of DeHaat in last 40 months has been phenomenal and has laid a foundation for a clear path to profitability,” said Kumar, who serves as CEO, in a statement. He added that 70% of the proceeds from the last round have yet to be deployed.

“We are very well capitalised at this point in time and we aim to leverage this status to consolidate our growth towards efficiency and profitability. Hence, we aim to break even in the next 12 months along with 2-2.5x growth on a year-on-year basis.”

Dexter Capital and Vertices Partners were the advisors for the Series E.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Expansion
• Technology
• Industrials
• India
• Agriculture
• Growth capital
• Sofina
• Temasek Holdings
• Prosus Ventures
• RTP Global