Gramophone raises $3.4 mn, to build full stack platform for farmers

Indore headquartered Agstack Technologies, which runs agritech platform Gramophone, has raised $3.4 million (Rs 25 crore) in a Series B funding round.

The round was led by deep tech investor Siana Capital, with participation from returning investors Info Edge, Asha Impact and Better Capital, a statement said. 

The fresh capital, it said, will be used for customer acquisition and to build an agronomic intelligence-backed full stack platform for farmers. Agronomy deals with the science and technology of growing and utilising plants in agriculture for food, fuel, fiber and land restoration. 

Founded in 2016 by Tauseef Ahmad Khan, Nishant Vats Mahatre, Harshit Gupta and Ashish Rajan Singh, Gramophone offers farmers an interactive platform to help them improve agricultural practices and realise better yields. The company claims to have helped more than 5.5 lakh farmers so far.

It last raised funds in August 2019 in a $3.38 million Series A funding round, preceded by a $1 million bridge round in March 2018.

“We have seen strong farmer adoption with a year-on-year 15-20% increase in the wallet share of the customers,” co-founder Khan, also the CEO of Gramophone, said.

Read: Outlook 2021: Key developments, trends and outlook for agritech in India 

Apart from linking the ecosystem and providing access to credit facilities, the platform provides farmers products such as seeds, fertilisers, nutrients, pesticides and farming equipment. Gramophone said it has helped farmers save upto 20% in costs and increased yield by 40%.

"The Gramophone team has a deep understanding of the agricultural supply chain. They have emerged as the leading agritech player that caters to a farmer’s end-to-end needs by providing the right agronomic intelligence, quality inputs and transparent market linkages,” Kitty Agarwal, partner at Info Edge Ventures, said.  

“We are proud of the team’s ability to deliver 100%+ growth this year, supporting smallholding farmers through a tough Kharif cycle amidst the nationwide lockdown,” Aditi Gupta, principal (investments), Asha Impact, said.