Exclusive: Google and others invest in agritech platform CropIn

Almost a year after its Series C round, agritech firm CropIn is raising a new round and it already has cornered $14 million or Rs 113.4 crore from Google, Singapore-based Impact Assets, and existing investors.

CropIn has passed a special resolution to issue 95,590 pre-series D CCPS at an issue price of Rs 11,862.68 per share to raise Rs 113.4 crore or $14 million, as per its regulatory filing with the Registrar of Companies.

Google and Impact Assets have invested Rs 40.78 crore and Rs 40 crore respectively while existing backers Chiratae Ventures and JSR Active Innovation Fund participated in the pre-series D round with Rs 24.47 crore and Rs 8.16 crore.

The Series D round seems to be an ongoing one and CropIn is likely to raise more money in the coming weeks. Founded in 2010, CropIn’s flagship product Cropin Cloud provides data and intelligence to increase farming efficiency, scale productivity and manage risk. According to its website, it has digitized 16 million acres of farmland and impacted the livelihood of 7 million farmers across 92 countries.

Following the investment, Impact Assets holds 18.20% stake in CropIn whereas Google commands 5.46%. Chiratae Ventures and JSR Active Innovation Fund own 6.78% and 1.11% stake respectively.

As per Fintrackr’s estimates the company has been valued at around Rs 740 crore or $91.3 million post allotment.

The past two years have set the momentum for the agritech ecosystem in India as startups in the space have scooped up over $640 million investment in 2022. According to a report by Entrackr, the segment had mopped up $636 million in 2021. In terms of valuation and revenue, DeHaat, Ninjacart, and Waycool are the top three companies.

This seems to be the first direct investment by Google in agritech startup in India. The search giant recently announced that it is organizing a virtual bootcamp for agritech startups in the country and the selected startups will be mentored by experts from the industry and Google.