Indian agritech startup Arya bags $21m in Quona Capital-led round

Indian agritech startup Arya said it has raised US$21 million in a series B round led by fintech-focused Quona Capital through a mix of equity and debt.

Existing investors LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore also participated in the round, according to a statement. Multiple lenders also provided additional debt financing to the company.

Photo credit: Ananth B S

Arya provides integrated post-harvest services to farmers, farmer producer organizations, food processors, and corporate agribusinesses. These include storage, warehouse management, embedded finance, and market linkages to agricultural producers and buyers across India through its platform A2zgodaam.

The company claims it currently has over 2.5 million tons of storage capacity across 1,500 warehouses in 20 Indian states.

Arya said it plans to use the new funds to expand financing to farmers through its embedded fintech arm Aryadhan and further strengthen its post-harvest services.

Aryadhan is Arya’s non-banking financial company subsidiary. It assists sellers of agri-commodities in avoiding distress sale of produce by extending post-harvest credit. To date, Aryadhan has completed loan disbursements of over 2.5 billion rupees (US$34 million), the company claims.

“Of the food grains worth US$130 billion produced by India annually, there are huge losses in primary and secondary markets due to lack of storage, forcing farmers to sell off-cycle for lower returns,” said Arya co-founder and CEO Prasanna Rao. “These same farmers are dependent on financing for their cash flow needs but are vastly underserved, hurting their ability to store and sell their produce optimally.”