Venture Catalysts, India’s first and largest integrated incubator and accelerator, has recently led an undisclosed round of investment in AgriGator, a B2B digital supply chain platform. The funding round was led by Manish Modi on behalf of Venture Catalysts with industrialist and entrepreneur Ness Wadia as a co-investor. AgriGator is a 100X.VC Nov 2019-funded portfolio company.
Founded in 2019 by Udit Sangwan and Charu Chaturvedi, AgriGator aims to provide a one-stop solution to the inefficiencies in the agricultural supply chain market by facilitating trade and logistics service between buyers, sellers, and carrier providers, in return for a small commission on every transaction. After buying from farmers, traders have traditionally depended on distributors or brokers to transport their grains from farms to mandis across states. Due to the high fees demanded by the brokers for arranging on-the-spot transportation, small scale traders and industries are forced to take loans. This is the exact need-gap AgriGator aims to address.
AgriGator simplifies the whole process by providing a single click solution for finding trucks with a turnaround time of 15 minutes, hence eliminating middleman and ensuring more transparency in the process. With more than 2000 truck drivers and over 500 traders and industry bodies on board, the platform only charges a commission of 3-5 percent per truck shipment. It also provides timely payments, diesel discounts, priority loans, and fuel benefits to truckers which help them save 10-12 percent on costs.
Speaking on the investment, Udit Sangwan, Founder – AgriGator, said, “The Indian agriculture industry faces a lot of logistics trouble due to the lack of innovation and technological advancement. The capital infusion would help AgriGator improve on its technology and hence provide better logistics services for our consumers. With Venture Catalysts’ support and belief in our vision, we will aggressively capture the market and scale the business pan-India.”
Manish Modi, Managing Partner at Mastermind Capital and Lead Investor, Venture Catalysts, commented, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Disintermediation is the need of the hour in the vast and highly inefficient agri supply chain industry. Technology can not only help bring much-needed efficiency to this unexplored space, but can also empower buyers and sellers to grow their businesses exponentially. We believe in Udit and Charu’s vision of creating a full stack B2B digital supply chain solution and support it wholeheartedly.”
Ness Wadia, Co-investor in AgriGator, said, “The passion and commitment demonstrated by Udit and Charu towards identifying supply chain bottlenecks and the resolve shown to address them is truly encouraging. Agriculture is in dire need of tech innovations like AgriGator. India needs many more entrepreneurs such as Udit & Charu to focus their energy on the agriculture space if India really desires to be a developed nation.”
Ninad Karpe, Partner, 100X.VC said, “100X.VC 's belief in the value proposition of AgriGator is now affirmed by the new round of investment which they have raised. As a startup aiming to solve the problems afflicting the agricultural supply chain, 100X.VC invested in the pre-seed round knowing that the founders were in the right space and would execute effectively. We believe that AgriGator has immense potential to grow rapidly".
Apart from being a full-stack supply chain solution for directly connecting wholesalers, grain traders, food processors, and logistic providers, the platform also enables shippers to arrange logistics from a wide network of carrier providers.
About Venture Catalysts
Venture Catalysts is India’s first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 million in early stage startups that have potential to create enduring value for a long period of time. Over the last few years, it has been instrumental in developing and nurturing the country’s vibrant startup ecosystem with a strong presence in Tier 2 and 3 markets. Venture Catalysts supports startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facilities. Venture Catalysts is focussed on providing startups with access to continuous capital from funds, investor network, Tier 1 founders & CXOs, and family offices, besides providing them with market access from corporates and global growth programmes.
Link : https://yourstory.com/2020/12/venture-catalysts-manish-modi-ness-wadia-invest-agrigator
Author :- Team YS ( )
December 24, 2020 at 12:02PM
YourStory