Maharashtra based agri-tech firm Agricxlab has raised $500,000 in an investment round led by Ankur Capital. The round also saw participation from IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). The startup plans to use the funds in product development and geographical expansion, the company stated in a statement.
Founded by Saurabh Kumar and Ritesh Dhoot in 2016, the startup uses computer vision and artificial intelligence on images to asses the agri produce. The company offers its services to warehouses and enterprises.
Ritu Verma, Managing Partner at Ankur Capital stated, “Globally, there is a need to understand the quality of food that we eat. Much of global produce comes from geographies with low penetration of organised players, use of many different seed varieties and farming practices and a multi-point value chain.
She further added, “Objectively determining quality at all points becomes all the more important. Technology that is easy to use, can be deployed along all points of the chain provides a critical transparency in food chains that today is hard to determine.”
Ankur Capital is an early stage investment firm with its dominant portfolio in agri-tech. The company has invested in 6 agri-tech startups so far, including Cropin Technologies, BigHaat, Suma Agro, TESSOL, and Health Sutra.
According to a report released by IBEF, more than 58 percent of the rural households depend on agriculture as their means of livelihood. It further added that the Indian food and grocery market is the sixth largest in the world with retail contributing 70 percent of the sales.