Agri-startup CropIn Tech raises Rs 58 cr

Agri startup CropIn Technology Solutions Monday announced raising of Rs 58 crore (USD 8 million) from two investors, including Chiratae Ventures, for expansion of its global 'SmartFarm' technology platform.

With this investment, the company -- which provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to agri-businesses globally -- has raised a total funding of USD 12 million till date.

"CropIn Technology has raised Rs 58 crore (USD 8 million) in a Series B financing from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund," the Bengaluru-based company said in a statement.

The financing will scale up the company's initial product 'SmartFarm', which is a customised mobile app and web interface platform for farm management, globally to expand its reach from 3 million acres across 2 million farmers to over 10 million acres across 7 million farmers, it said.

The SmartFarm allows for business-to-business-to-farmer plot-level farm management, and the CropIn then builds on this data to enhance traceability and monitoring for its agri-business clients through various SaaS offerings.

CropIn Founder and CEO Krishna Kumar said: "To feed the 9.7 billion people in the world in 2050, agriculture efficiency must increase by 35-70 per cent and technology is the key. India's rich mix of farming practices and small land-holdings provide a massive data set to inform our models".

The company is currently active in 29 countries throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and in select European markets. "As ground-truth information from these geographies continues to fill our data lake, it provides insights that create a paradigm shift in the agriculture ecosystem globally," he added.

With the capital infusion and rich data set, the company said it would further develop its machine learning-based 'SmartRisk' platform to achieve unprecedented levels of plot-level crop detection and yield prediction.