The new round has come after a gap of 33 months for AgroStar.
The fresh funds will be deployed towards product and business expansion & hiring.
AgroStar, an omnichannel agriculture advisory and commerce marketplace, has raised $70 million in Series D funding from Evolvence, Schroders Capital, Hero Enterprise, and CDC. The round was also attended by existing investors Aavishkaar Capital, Accel, Bertelsmann, Chiratae Ventures, and Rabo Frontier Ventures.
AgroStar’s new round comes after a 33-month hiatus. In March 2019, Bertelsmann India led a $27 million Series C round in the Pune-based company.According to a press release from the company, the new funds will be used for product and business expansion, hiring, and strengthening omnichannel strategies.
AgroStar, which began as a missed call knowledge service for farmers in 2013, has evolved into a full-stack platform that offers farm advisory solutions and agri inputs through a combination of online and offline channels. It has over 1,000 offline touchpoints in states such as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra.
AgroStar intends to have 5,000 such touchpoints in the coming years. According to its website, the company’s Android-only app, where farmers exchange knowledge and purchase authentic agri-inputs, has over 5 million downloads.
While the company has not yet released financial figures for FY21, its operating income increased by 80% to Rs 153.69 crore in FY20 from Rs 85.56 crore in FY19. In terms of revenue, its losses increased by 78 percent to Rs 93.81 crore in FY20 from Rs 52.82 crore the previous fiscal year (FY19).
This is one of India’s largest funding rounds for agritech startups. Patna and Gurugram-based DeHaat raised $115 million in Series D funding in October, the most ever raised by an Indian agritech startup in a single round.
