Gramophone raises Rs 24 cr from Info Edge, Asha Impact and Better Capital

Agri-tech startup Gramophone on Tuesday said it has raised Rs 24 crore (USD 3.5 million) in funding from Info Edge, Raveen Sastry (Co-founder of Myntra.com), Asha Impact and Better Capital.

Info Edge is an existing investor in Gramophone, while Asha Impact is a platform founded by Vikram Gandhi (former Credit Suisse executive) and Pramod Bhasin (former President and CEO of Genpact), a statement said.

"The startup is rapidly scaling up its operations and will use the funds to expand across several states," it added.

Founded in 2016, Gramophone provides actionable agronomic insights coupled with last-mile delivery of agriculture inputs to farmers through a smartphone app and a call centre.

The startup's last-mile delivery model has helped them serve over 2.5 lakh farmers in the remotest villages across central India.

"We are excited to see how farmers are adopting newer opportunities to maximize their income. This investment will enable us to invest aggressively on product, data science and scale operations across geographies," Gramophone co-founder and CEO Tauseef Khan said.

In a BSE filing, Info Edge said it owned about 37.21 per cent of Agstack Technologies (Gramophone) as of June 30, 2019.

"Gramophone has signed a definitive agreement to raise funds from a couple of other investors, consequent to which the company's shareholding in Gramophone stands reduced to about 33.21 per cent. The company has not participated in this round of fund raising by Gramophone," the filing added.

Khan clarified that Info Edge (India), in the first closing earlier this year, had invested through its wholly-owned subsidiary about Rs 14 crore in Gramophone.

"The remaining amount of Rs 10 crore has been received from our other investors, in the second closing of the same round," he added.