Stellapps raises Series A funding led by Blume Ventures

Dairy Internet of Thing (IoT) firm Stellapps has raised Series A funding led by Blume Ventures. The start-up, which is supported by agri-tech focused investment fund Omnivore Partners, also saw the participation of high-profile investors like Flipkart Group CEO Binny Bansal and Venture Highway. Though the amounts raised were not disclosed.

The company develops solutions for dairy industry and hailed by industry veterans for its innovative work. Stellapps claims to have built a full-stack IoT platform that spans the entire value chain, including precision farming, milk procurement, cold chain logistics, and processing.

Stellapps firm was registered in April 2011 by five engineers Ranjith Mukundan, Praveen Nale, Ravishankar Shiroor, Ramakrishna Adukuri, and Venkatesh Seshasayee. Many applications are available on its platform, including SmartFarms (milk production), smartAMCU (milk procurement), ConTrak (milk cold chain), AgRupay (dairy farmer wallet) and MooKare (animal insurance).

Omnivore Parteners is backed by diversified agri-business firm Godrej Agrovet, SIDBI and SBI among other financial institutions. It has invested in Stellapps and Ecozen, a micro cold storage facility that works on solar power and can be installed even in small farms.

“We are thrilled to be working with Blume Ventures, Binny Bansal and Venture Highway as we bring transparency, data analytics, and machine learning to the global dairy industry,” Mukundan was quoted as saying by VCcircle.

The firm has many dairy clients operating in India, Nepal, Kenya, Bulgaria, Russia and France. In 2013, Stellapps had received seed funding from venture capital firm Omnivore Partners. It was initially incubated at the Rural Technology Business Incubator in IIT Madras.

In IoT space, many start-ups raised funds recently and at the same few had to shut shops.

In April, IoTrek Technology, which provides industrial IoT solutions for telecommunications, energy and solar grid management, had secured $154,000 in a seed round. IoT solutions startup, Tyre Express had raised an additional amount in seed funding from an angel investor. In January, TempoGO, an IoT and SaaS-based solutions provider for commercial transportation, had raised seed money from a clutch of investors.

However, the space saw a shut down in Cube26, which had to shut shop due funding crunches.