Alwar, Rajasthan, is a mustard country. Winters turn the fields yellow and the local economy moves to the rhythm of sowing, harvesting and selling oilseeds. Amith Agarwal grew up in this landscape, absorbing the mechanics of agriculture before he understood its economics. He studied commerce in Alwar and moved to Mumbai in 2002 for an MBA. He never finished it.
A summer internship at Reliance turned into a job. Agarwal’s reasoning was blunt: an MBA is meant to secure placement. He already had one. Six months later, he quit that too. In his early twenties, he returned to agriculture with Rs 15–20 lakh from his father, family-backed securities and a clear intent to build a business in the sector.
“I was very clear from my graduation days that I would start my own enterprise in agriculture. It gives me joy,” he says.
The timing mattered. For three decades, India had banned commodity futures trading. Around the early 2000s, policy began to shift. The National Agricultural Policy of 2000 argued for deeper futures markets to smooth price volatility. States were nudged to reform APMC laws to allow direct marketing and contract farming.
In 2003, the ban on futures trading was lifted and NCDEX was incorporated. ICICI Bank, a founding promoter of the exchange, was simultaneously building a network to lend against agricultural commodities.
Agarwal became one of ICICI’s channel partners. At review meetings, he kept encountering three others from small-town Rajasthan — Amit Khandelwal, Amit Mundawala and Suresh Goyal.
All came from agricultural families. All were among the bank’s largest partners. Between them, they provided personal guarantees of about 200 crore against a combined lending limit of2,000 crore.
Structural gap
They were seeing the same structural gap. Farmers needed cash immediately after harvest. Traditional godowns were unscientific — grain degraded due to moisture, pests and poor handling. Banks would not lend against such stock. The result was forced selling at post-harvest prices or dependence on moneylenders.
Scientific warehousing offered a different outcome: controlled storage, certified grading and a warehouse receipt that could be used as collateral. The farmer could borrow cheaply and sell later, when prices improved. This system barely existed at scale.
2007 quest
In 2007, they decided to build it.
“Before us, the farmer’s profitability was unpredictable,” Agarwal says. “After us, he had options.”
By 2012, the network had crossed 180 locations across seven states. That year, IDFC Private Equity invested 150 crore. Temasek followed with250 crore in 2015.
From 2016 onwards, StarAgri layered technology onto this base. It launched AgriBazaar, a digital marketplace allowing farmers and traders to transact outside mandis; set up an NBFC lending to agri entrepreneurs; and invested in satellite-based farm mapping. Each new vertical was built around the same post-harvest logic: reduce distress selling and improve price discovery.
Financially, the model diverged sharply from much of the agritech cohort. StarAgri has raised about 275 crore in primary capital across its lifetime and has been profitable in most years. In FY25, it reported revenue of1,560 crore, net profit of `68 crore, return on equity of 16% and zero debt.
That contrasts with better-funded peers. DeHaat, which raised over $200 million, reported FY25 revenue of 3,040 crore but accumulated losses exceeding4,200 crore between FY21 and FY24 before turning profitable. FarMart crossed `1,970 crore in revenue in FY25 with widening losses. Several venture-backed agritech startups shut down after funding dried up. Between 2022 and 2025, more than $2 billion flowed into the sector, with limited durable profitability to show for it.
“We have not burned a single rupee on customer acquisition,” Agarwal says. “If your product adds value, the customer is willing to pay.”
The company’s one loss-making year came in 2018–19, amid the aftershocks of demonetisation and the GST transition. Agarwal says survival came down to trust built over the years. Customers stayed. Warehouse partners shifted from fixed leases to revenue-sharing. Employees accepted salary freezes. “People said, let’s stick around and get through this.”
Today, StarAgri operates over 2,000 warehouses across 19 states with storage capacity of 5.2 million metric tonnes. The post-harvest ecosystem it plays in — warehousing, financing and commodity trade — is estimated at over `10 lakh crore, with organised penetration still in single digits. An IPO is under consideration, and the company believes it can grow at around 20% annually over the long term.
“Agri is a long game,” Agarwal says. Then he adds a farmer’s line: “90 din boya, 9 din nikla.” You sow for 90 days. You harvest in nine.
In a decade defined by speed, burn and blitzscaling, four entrepreneurs built an agribusiness at the pace of the hinterland it serves. StarAgri did not chase growth first. It stored value, and waited.