Exclusive: Agritech startup AgroStar’s valuation surges 43% in new tranche

Agritech startup AgroStar has received the last tranche of its $70 million Series D round with a significant jump in valuation. The Pune-based startup has received $10 million from over half a dozen investors including Evolvence, Schroders Capital, Hero Enterprise, and CDC in the round announced in December last year.

The board at AgroStar has passed a special resolution to allot 193709 Series E preference shares at an issue price of Rs 3965.34 per share to raise Rs 76.81 crore or close to $10 million, regulatory filings show.

This marks a 41% jump in issue price as compared to Rs 2,816 each share during the rest of the tranches in its $70 million worth Series D round.

Schroders has spearheaded this tranche with $2.8 million followed by Evolvence, Hero and CDC with $2.45 million, $1.7 million and $1 million respectively. Remaining investors: Rabo Frontier, Bertelsmann, Accel and Chiratae have collectively put in around $2 million.

As per Fintrackr’s estimates, AgroStar has been valued at a little over Rs 1,800 crore or $235 million post this infusion. Due to sharp surge in issue price, AgroStar’s valuation jumped by 43% as compared to the Rs 1,260 crore when the company received its previous tranche. The nine-year-old firm has raised $112 million to date.

In a separate resolution, AgroStar’s board also approved the appointment of Abhishek Chandra as a non-executive director of the company. Chandra is the managing director at Evolvence India and will join the board of directors as a nominee of the fund.

Launched in 2013, AgroStar has evolved into a full-stack platform for farmers and provides farm advisory solutions and agri inputs through online and offline channels. It claims to have over 1,000 offline touchpoints across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra among others.

AgroStar competes with Unnati, Gramophone, DeHaat and a few others.

As per data compiled by Fintrackr, agritech startups had raised $461 million across 36 deals in 2021. This includes the four largest funding rounds in this space including Ninjacart’s $145 million, Waycool’s $117 million, DeHaat’s $115 million and AgroStar’s $70 million round.

In the current calendar year, Absolute has emerged as the top fundraiser in the space with a new round at $500 million valuation followed by Arya.ag which raised $60 million round at $300 million valuation. Sequoia-backed Bijak had also raised fresh tranche in its Series B round at a post money valuation of $160 million. Entrackr had exclusively reported the development on January 20.

Valuation wise, Ninjcarat, DeHaat and Waycool are top three companies with valuation of $815 million, $500 million and $460 million respectively.

Update: The headline and story has been changed to reflect that the $10 million tranche is a part of Series D round. The company has confirmed that the last tranche of Series D round has been received at an increased share price and valuation.