Agritech startup raises $1.8m pre-seed, largest in Bangladesh

Agroshift, a Bangladesh-based agritech startup, raised US$1.8 million in a pre-seed round co-led by Shorooq Partners and Anchorless Bangladesh. The company said the raise marks the country’s largest for its stage.

The round also saw participation from Ratio Ventures, Sketchnote Partners, and Demand Curve founder Julian Shapiro.

Photo credit: Agroshift

Agroshift is an agricultural supply chain platform that helps farmers sell produce through demand aggregation, sourcing, and delivery.

Agroshift sets up digital ordering systems in factories, which workers order produce from. The firm aggregates these orders to farmers, then drops off the items at partnered factories.

The company is currently focused on two sales channels: ready-made garments (RMG) factories and neighborhood mom and pop stores.

Qazi Bouland, co-founder and CEO of Agroshift, told Tech in Asia that by selling directly to end-consumers, they can reduce costs for consumers while still making sure farmers are fairly paid. He added that current supply chains mark up prices between 70% and 150% of the cost price.

Bouland added the firm currently has operations in five factories, each with an average of 10,000 workers. They plan to reach up to 100,000 workers by year’s end.

In line with this, part of the new capital will go towards improving Agroshift’s platform as well as adding social commerce features like community group buying and gamification inspired by China agriculture ecommerce platform Pinduoduo to drive usage.

Rahat Ahmed, founding partner and CEO at Anchorless Bangladesh, said Agroshift’s model for domestic supply chain optimization held tremendous opportunity to drive value for farmers and consumers, especially as consumers struggle with rising costs.

Early boost

Bouland co-founded Agroshift in March 2022 alongside Rameez Hoque and Diptha Saha.

Before starting Agroshift, Bouland worked in the corporate line, most recently as Digital Platforms head at one of the largest telcos in Bangladesh, Banglalink.

Meanwhile, Hoque and Saha had startup backgrounds: Hoque was co-founder of factory workforce management firm Kinship AI, while Saha previously led dairy marketplace Khamar-e.

In February 2022, Agroshift was selected as one of the six winning teams in clothing retail giant H&M’s “Stitch for RMG” innovation challenge.