Singapore government investment fund Temasek also co-invested in the round with participation from existing investors, Prosus, RTP Global, Sequoia Capital India and FMO, a senior company executive said.
The Delhi-based startup has so far raised $157 million, including the latest round, Shashank Kumar, cofounder and CEO of DeHaat, told ET.
The company was
last valued at $158 million after it raised $30 million in January in a round led by Prosus (formerly Naspers), as per startup industry data tracking platform Tracxn.
The latest round, according to sources, has tripled the company’s valuation to around $450 million. Kumar, however, declined to comment on its valuation.
The nine-year-old company will use the funds for network expansion, to ramp up its technological interface and for growing value-added services.
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The company is currently clocking Rs 100 crore in revenues each month and expect to close the financial year ending March 31, 2022, at Rs 1,400 crore, a nearly four-fold jump from its Rs 352 crore revenue as of March 31, this year, Kumar said.
Founded in 2012 by Kumar, Shyam Sundar Singh, Amrendra Singh and Adarsh Srivastav, DeHaat is a technology-based business-to-farmers (B2F) platform that offers full-stack agricultural services to farmers through its digitised network of farmers and last-mile service providers.
DeHaat has built a rural retail network of more than 3,000 micro-entrepreneurs for last-mile delivery and aggregation, with an overall base of 700,000 farmers on its platform.
It has around 650 buyers who purchase from farmers, and around 150 sellers who sell various farming-related products to farmers.
“Around 70% of our current revenues come from output services (farmers selling), while around 30% of it is from input services,” Kumar said.
“The last seven months have been phenomenal with a five-time growth for DeHaat… we are now well poised to replicate the success in all major agriculture clusters of India in the next 12-15 months,” Kumar said.
It is present in seven states and is looking to widen its reach across regions, going forward.
Kumar said he is expecting around a million farmers to come on board the platform by the end of the current financial year. The company will use the new capital to invest in its technology as well as hire more people.
Besides enabling commerce for farmers, it also offers them advisory services for various aspects related to farming like seeds, yields. The company has now tied up with banks and non-banking financial companies to add a layer of credit to the platform. It has so far disbursed loans worth Rs 75 crore.
“Through our due diligence, we became convinced that DeHaat is bringing substantial value-add to the farming community in India. The uniqueness of its full-stack approach combined with the ‘phygital’ go-to-market strategy further reaffirmed our view that the company is on track to become a significant player in the farming industry in India,” said Yana Kachurina, principal and investment manager, Sofina.
The funding is an indicator of the growing interest by risk investors in the agri-tech sector, where half a dozen companies such as Gramophone, Bijak, Onato, Agrostar, Reshamandi, BharatAgri, and TartanSense have raised capital from investors in recent times.
“We have been following DeHaat’s progress through the years and are impressed with their steep growth trajectory combined with a strong network of micro-entrepreneurs. Through innovative social engineering and tech-led execution, DeHaat has built the largest first-mile network for farmers and is well-positioned to help transform agriculture by improving yields and farmer income,” said Vaidhehi Ravindran, partner, Lightrock India.
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