Indian agritech startup DeHaat secures $12m from Sequoia, others

DeHaat, an Indian online marketplace for farming services and products, said it has raised US$12 million in a series A round led by Sequoia Capital India.

Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO, as well as existing investors Omnivore and AgFunder, also participated in this round, according to a statement.

Photo credit: Pxhere

Founded in 2012, DeHaat aims to become a one-stop solution for agricultural services such as AI-based farm advisory, financial services, and distribution of segment-specific inputs. Its platform also aggregates harvests from farmers on their network to directly supply retail chains, ecommerce players, FMCG firms, and food processors.

With the new funds, DeHaat plans to scale up to 2,000 rural retail centers for last-mile delivery and farm produce aggregation, as well as boost the number of farmers on its network to 1 million by June 2021. Currently, the startup serves over 210,000 farmers and about 280 centers across India.

It also plans to use part of the new capital to automate its supply chain and boost its data analytics capability to drive efficiency.

According to Sequoia Capital India vice president Abhishek Mohan, DeHaat is capitalizing on India’s US$350 billion agriculture industry, which is powered by roughly 100 million small and independent farmers. “This industry is on the brink of a massive transformation with ease of regulation, farmers getting organized, and increasing smartphone penetration.”

DeHaat previously raised US$4 million in a pre-series A round in March last year, led by Omnivore and AgFunder. Since then, the startup claims its annual revenue has grown 3.5x. It received a top-up of US$3 million in venture debt from Trifecta Capital in May 2019.