Exclusive: Procol raises Rs 28 Cr in fresh round led by Sequoia’s Surge

B2B agricultural commodities buying platform Procol has raised Rs 28.65 crore led by Sequoia’s Surge. Singapore-based Beenext has also joined the round with existing backer Blume Ventures. The fresh financing for the Delhi-based firm has come after 10 months.

Sequoia’s Surge led the round with an investment of Rs 12.53 crore followed by Beenext investing Rs 10.74 crore. Blume Ventures infused Rs 5.37 crore while existing investor Rainmatter Capital didn’t participate. Procol has allotted 20 equity shares and 4,092 Series 2 Seed CCPS at a price of Rs 69,674.9 per share to raise the aforementioned sum, shows regulatory filings.

For the unaware, Procol is a mobile-based all-in-one procurement software for agricultural products such as food grains. Unlike Udaan that weeds out brokers from the chain, it brings buyers, sellers, brokers and traders under its ecosystem. 

In July last year, Procol had raised its maiden round worth $1 million from Blume and Rainmatter Capital. Post allotment of the fresh shares, Blume Ventures commands 21.55% stake while Surge Sequoia, Beenext and Rainmatter Capital held 10%, 8.57% and 4.28% stake in the company respectively.

Founded by Gaurav Baheti and Sumit Mendiratta, Procol - short for Procurement Protocol - is a two-year-old venture. Its flagship product AgriBid claims to have a gross merchandise value of Rs 1,200 crore (via contracts). The company operates across 100 cities and serves 1,500 merchants including Haldiram’s, BigBazaar and Golden Harvest. 

After the fresh financing, Baheti and Mendiratta’s holdings have also diluted to 55.6% from 72.8%. 

According to Fintarckr estimates, Procol’s valuation post the current round stood at nearly Rs 126 crore, recording a five-fold jump from Rs 25.3 crore within 12 months. The price per share has also increased over 4X from Rs 18,198 per share in Seed Series 1 to Rs 69,675 per share in the Seed Series 2 investment. 

Separately, Procol also passed a special resolution to adopt ESOP Scheme 2020 which will constitute 1,542 equity shares to be allotted to eligible employees. The pool size is now worth Rs 10.74 crore.

In barely five months of operations in FY19, the company recorded an operating revenue of Rs 39.14 lakhs and earned a net profit of Rs 11.33 lakhs. Notably, Rs 34 lakh of the income was generated through services provided to related party entity Future Consumer Limited. Baheti’s uncle Narendra Baheti is the executive director at Future Consumer Ltd and sits on the board of directors of Future Group.

Agri commodity buying in India is a $400 billion large unorganised market and ripe for tech-enabled disruption. Several players including Udaan, Ninjacart, Crofarm, Wooplr and Tradila have been trying to solve this pain. While most of these companies directly source from farmers, Procol brings the stakeholders of existing chains at one app for buyers, sellers, brokers and traders on mobile. Its bidding app is a real-time tracker for fluctuating prices of unorganised mandis.