A Delhi-NCR based agritech startup, Agribazaar is delivering future-ready and tech-enabled solutions to the farming community. The startup connects farmers, banks, enterprises, traders, and the government.
This new-age digital platform or e-mandi that helps small farmers and merchants was founded by Amith Agarwal in 2016. Having founded StarAgri Finance and StarAgri, he already had vast experience in this field. Amith and his team in 2017 created AgriPay, an award-winning e-wallet that has facilitated transactions of more than $1 billion to date. Agribazaarā€™s team consists of 150 members and they plan to add 350 more by the end of this fiscal year. The company also plans to extend to more cities making its geographical coverage to 75 cities from 32 at present.
The parent company, StarAgri which specializes in procurement, warehousing, and collateral management of agri-commodities has a presence in more than 15 states in India. StarAgri was founded in 2006 and received PE funding in the past from IDFC Private Equity and Temaesk Holding and controls approximately 800 agri-warehouses in India.
Empowering Farmers By Delivering Transparency, Traceability, And Efficiency
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The basis of the foundation of Agribazaar was that small farm owners typically face challenges that are lop-sided to their resources and size. Hence by connecting farmers to market with this platform, buying and selling of agri-produce at mutually transparent and best price mechanism without the involvement of middlemen has been made possible.
Through Agribazaar once the buyer purchases a product, the platform facilitates the logistics of delivering the goods to the buyer. Since its inception the company has facilitated Rs.9000 crore worth of transactions, thus making it one of the largest online agri-trading marketplace of the nation.
Presently Agribazaar connects approximately 10,000 traders and processors, more than 100 FPO (Farmer Producer Organizations) with its network of more than 2 lakh farmers across the country. According to the companyā€™s data, the trade volumes crossed 50,000 tonnes and the company is closing FY21 with a GMV of Rs.20000 crore.
The company is following all the COVID-19 safety protocols by ensuring there is no crowding in physical mandis. The company has replicated the physical mandi to e-mandi aggregator model.
Agribazaarā€™s Aggregator Model
The company leverages AI-driven insights and analytics to provide customized crop advisory, credit-on-a-click, and more. The platform is using technology in transforming the agri-value chain while assuring quality and mitigating counterparty risk. The companyā€™s mission is to empower small farm owners and enhance their livelihood.
The e-mandi platform works in a way that once a farmer registers and uploads his produce, buyers like merchants, traders, and corporates can place orders for purchase. The on-ground staff picks up the produce once the deal is complete from the pick-up point specified by the farmer and delivers it to the buyerā€™s destination.
Considering the present times, the process has been made almost contactless. The company is at the forefront of helping the farmers in India connect with buyers digitally while following the social distancing protocol.
Agribazaar has been working closely with farmers, institutional buyers, procurement agencies, and state governments to get farmers to download the app and trade on it from the safety of their homes. Farmers receive their payments directly in their bank account within a stipulated time via e-payment method.
The company took initially 18 months to put this app together. Continuous efforts are being made to add new features and new commodities for a better experience and there is a dedicated team R&D and engineering team assigned for this purpose. Besides this, the company has been investing on customer acquisition marketing to enable them enter new states and onboard new farmers.
How Is Agribazaarā€™s Platform Helping Farmers?
Agribazaarā€™s platform enables the agri-value chain to operate with fewer overheads and decreases any hidden inefficiencies.Ā According to the company, by selling through Agribazaarā€™s platform farmers get an average price gain of 8-10%. The gain from fruits is more at around 20% and on dry fruits, it is more than 10%. While in the grains segment, the gains are more than 5%.
The company is continuously making efforts to upload farm data to its app- be it agricultural land history to credit history to his family history with an aim to become Google Maps of countryā€™s agri-sector. By leveraging technologies like AI, ML, Big Data, and IoT the company aims to empower and democratize the Indian farmer and to ensure that they get the best price for their produce in a fair and transparent manner while avoiding middlemen.
