Omnivore Capital fund-raising on track for December closure

Omnivore Capital, India's first agricultural technology venture fund, has garnered about Rs 187.5 crore of the targeted corpus and is on track for the closure of the fund by December-end.

Omnivore Capital, which plans to raise Rs 250 crore, has garnered over 75% of the targeted corpus to date and fund-raising is on track for completion by end-December 2012, the company said.

Omnivore Capital is a venture fund investing in agricultural technology start-ups in India. Omnivore supports early stage companies developing solutions to improve farm productivity. Godrej Agrovet is the strategic adviser and anchor investor in Omnivore Capital.

Omnivore Capital recently invested in two ag-tech startups, Khedut Agro Engineering and FrontalRain Technologies.

Khedut is India's leading manufacturer of automatic seed drills and planting equipment. FrontalRain offers affordable, cloud-based supply chain software for agribusiness and food processing companies.

Omnivore made its debut investment last year in Skymet Weather Services, India's first private weather forecasting company.

Meanwhile, Omnivore has appointed M Prabhakar Rao, Chairman of the NSL Group, to the Fund's Investment Committee.

As an Investment Committee member, Rao would be involved in the decision-making process for new venture investments.

Omnivore Capital Venture Partner Mark Kahn said, "Rao's deep knowledge of agricultural technology will greatly benefit our portfolio companies and help create substantial value for our investors".