Agritech start-up Ergos receives Rs 22.5 crore from UK's CDC Group

Agritech start-up Ergos on Wednesday said it has received Rs 22.5 crore (USD 3 million) from the UK's CDC Group as the closure to its Series-A round, which constituted Rs 81 crore (USD 11 million).

Earlier in March, the Ergos Series-A round of funds included Rs 35 crore (USD 4.9 million) investment from Aavishkaar Capital and Rs 23.5 crore (USD 3.1 million) from Chiratae Ventures, the company said in a statement.

The agri start-up has been building a grain bank model that has been piloted in Bihar, which enables farmers to digitise their foodgrain and also provides them doorstep access to end-to-end post-harvest supply chain solutions by leveraging its technology platform.

The Ergos platform operates like a bank and offers storage, digitisation, credit and liquidation facility to farmers and has consistently helped them achieve significantly higher incomes for their produce.

"We are building Ergos primarily to extend post-harvest support to small and marginal farmers on storage, credit and market linkages at farm-gate. We are leveraging technology to empower farmers and enable them to be key decision takers with respect to their crop produce," it said.

Ergos founder and CEO Kishor Jha said, "We are excited to have CDC onboard and along with the continued support from Chiratae Ventures and Aavishkaar Capital. We intend to rapidly scale our geographic footprint and remain steadfast in our desire to cater to millions of farmers directly at farm-gate over the next few years."

CDC GroupHead (South Asia Private Equity Funds) Craig Gifford also said, "Investing to support small-holder farmers and improve their livelihoods is a strong demonstration of how we use our capital at CDC.