Unnati Agri, a fintech-driven agriculture service platform, raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Incofin Investment Management, NabVentures and Orios during FY22. During the fiscal year, the company’s revenue also surged three-fold to cross Rs 150 crore mark.
Unnati Agri’s revenue from operations grew around 3X to Rs 159 crore in FY22 from Rs 54.5 crore in the previous fiscal year (FY21), as per the audited annual financial statements filed by the company.
Unnati offers Agri-input services that guide farmers to predict, optimize and purchase agri-inputs. It also provides financial management services to farmers to solve their working capital requirements and supports them throughout their farming cycle.
On the input side, registered farmers can buy seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and other products from scores of branded suppliers and sellers listed on Unnati. And on the output side, they can sell their produce directly to food processors and agribusinesses that the platform connects them with.
Moving over to the cost sheet, the cost of procurement of agri-inputs was the largest cost center for the Delhi-based company accounting for 85.7% of the overall cost which grew 3X to Rs 144.1 crore in FY22 from Rs 48.4 crore in FY21.
Cash discounts given to the customers were another major cost for Unnati Agri followed by the cost of procurement of materials which increased by 7.25X to Rs 8.7 crore in FY22.
Unnati hired more people in the team during FY22. This is evident from their employee benefit expenses which shot up by 97.6% to Rs 8.3 crore in FY22. The company added another Rs 1.3 crore for advertisement and business promotion which pushed the total cost by 2.9X to Rs 168 crore in FY22 from Rs 57.5 crore in the preceding fiscal year (FY21).
With around 3X growth in the scale, the losses of the company spiked 4.2X to Rs 9.3 crore in FY22. On a unit level, it spent Rs 1.06 to earn a single unit of operating revenue.
Floated by Amit Sinha, former COO of Paytm Mall, the company claims that it has over 9 lakh farmers registered on the platform and has a presence in more than seven states and over 150 districts.
Even as the firm is just one step away from profitability, the challenge will be to sustain that as and when it happens. The agriculture sector remains one of the toughest sectors to crack, especially in a year when the cost of inputs has risen for many key crops, inviting higher government subsidies and more. That is never a good thing for a market linked firm, although Unnati seems to have done a good job with its menu of services.
