Binny Bansal-backed 021 Capital infuses Rs 9.4 Cr in BharatAgri

Personalized agri-advisory platform BharatAgri has raised Pre-Series A led by Binny Bansal backed 021 Capital. This round also saw participation from existing investors India quotient, Better Capital and Quest Global COO Ajay Prabhu.

BharatAgri plans to use the fresh funds on product enhancement and growth, besides expanding its footprint across India, according to the company’s press release.

While the Pune-based startup didn’t disclose the details of the transaction, regulatory filings show that BharatAgri has allotted 1 equity shares and 4,577 pre-Series A CCPS at an issue price of Rs 20,423.77 per share to O21 Capital for an aggregate consideration of around Rs 9.4 crore. No allotments have been made to the other investors in this tranche at the time of publishing.

Fintrackr’s calculations estimate that BharatAgri has reached an estimated valuation of Rs 47 crore (post-money). This is a jump of 88% in valuation as compared to the last tranche when it raised Rs 4.25 crore from India Quotient and others at a  valuation of  Rs 25 crore in January this year.

BharatAgri was founded by Siddharth Dialani and Sai Gole. It provides personalized agriculture and farming advisory and makes money through paid subscriptions. The company claims to have over 350,000 users and during the pandemic alone it sold more than 13,000 premium subscriptions.

Post allotment, promoter’s -- Gole and Dialani have diluted their collective shareholding from 53.18% to 43.96% with Gole being the larger shareholder with 22.34% stake. The latter owns a 21.62% stake in the company. 

India Quotient and O21 Capital command 20.1% and 20% stake respectively, whereas the ESOP pool and others, constitute an aggregate 15.94% stake in the agritech startup.

In the last fiscal year, the three-year-old startup grew its operating revenues by nearly 130%. According to the company’s audited financial statements, it posted Rs 66.3 lakh in revenue from operations In FY20 as compared to Rs 29.1 lakh it earned in Fy19. During the same period, BhartAgri’s losses rose 11X to Rs 4.5 crore in FY20 from Rs 40.8 lakh in the previous fiscal as the early-stage startup burnt cash in efforts to scale up its operations.    

The ongoing calendar year has been the best ever phase for agritech startups as far as raising funds is concerned. Over two dozen startups in this segment including Ergos, Unnati, Bijak, DeHaat, Ninjacart, Crofarm, BigHaat and Waycool have raised funds in 2020 till date.