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Once overlooked, agritech startups are beginning to have a moment in India.

On Tuesday, DeHaat, an online platform that offers full-stack agricultural services to farmers, said it has raised $30 million in a new financing round as the Indian firm looks to maintain its accelerated growth despite the pandemic.

Prosus Ventures, formerly known as Naspers Ventures, led Patna and Gurgaon-based startup’s Series C financing round. RTP Global and existing investors Sequoia Capital India, FMO, Omnivore and AgFunder also participated in it, bringing the startup’s to-date raise to over $46 million. (Dexter Capital was the advisor for this funding round.)

One of the biggest challenges farmers in India face is securing agri-input items such as seeds and fertilizers and then finding buyers after producing the yields.

DeHaat, which is Hindi for village, is solving this by bringing brands, institutional financers and buyers to one platform, which is accessible through a helpline and an app in local languages.

Only about a third of the yields Indian farmers produce reaches the big markets, according to industry estimates. It’s traditionally proven immensely difficult for farmers to find buyers for their produce.

Once the season is over, DeHaat helps farmers sell their yields to bulk buyers such as business-to-business marketplace Udaan, Reliance Fresh, and food delivery firm Zomato.

The 10-year-old startup has also developed a database of crop tests and uses artificial intelligence to provide farmers with free-of-cost personalized advisory on what they should sow in a season. DeHaat also helps farmers secure working capital through partnership with hundreds of institutional firms.

We wrote about DeHaat last year, when it had raised a $12 million financing round. The past nine months has been the story of its accelerated growth despite the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted lockdowns across the nation for several months.

The startup, which today has presence in eastern part of India — states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal — serves close to 400,000 farmers, up from about 210,000 in April last year, Shashank Kumar, co-founder and chief executive of the startup, told TechCrunch in an interview.

How the startup is tackling these challenges is equally impressive. It works with nearly 1,400 micro-entrepreneurs, up from about 400 last year, in rural areas who distribute over 4,000 types of agri-input goods to farmers from their regional hubs and then bring back the output to the same hub. “They are the ones responsible for last-mile delivery and aggregation,” he said.

DeHaat has grown on every front, including the revenue it clocks, which is up 3X to 3.5X since last year, he said.

“At the end of March, our daily volume out was around 200 metric tonne. Now it’s over 600 metric tonne. Everyday we aggregate this much from farmers and supply to FMCG players and modern retails. Similarly on the agri-input side — seed, fertilizers, and pesticide — we are processing close to 10,000 orders everyday, compared to about 2,600 in March of last year,” he said.

“Prosus Ventures invests in industries around the world where innovation can significantly address big societal needs,” said Ashutosh Sharma, Head of India Investments at Prosus Ventures, in a statement.

“DeHaat is catering to a massive market in India with the agriculture sector worth more than $350 billion to the country’s economy and consisting of an estimated 140 million+ farmers. Through its end-to-end agricultural services offerings, DeHaat will have a major societal impact in India, improving the earning potential for Indian farmers and overall yield for the sector while also enabling microentrepreneurs all over the country, including in rural areas where there is often less income opportunity,” he added.

The startup plans to deploy the fresh capital to expand to more states in India including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra and eventually serve 10 million farmers.

And another area where it intends to focus is hiring top tech talent. The startup has doubled its workforce since the past year, with many high-profile hires from major firms. The startup, which recently made its second acquisition, is also open to exploring more M&A opportunities, said DeHaat’s Kumar.

Once ignored, scores of agritech startups have cropped up in India in recent years — and many old startups are beginning to receive large-sized checks from investors.

Further reading: Omnivore and Accel recently co-authored a report on India’s agritech landscape.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/18/prosus-ventures-leads-30-million-investment-in-indian-agritech-startup-dehaat/

Darwinbox, which operates a cloud-based human resource management platform, has raised $15 million in a new financing round as the Indian startup looks to further expand in the country and Southeast Asian markets.

The new round — a Series C — for the Hyderabad-headquartered startup was led by Salesforce Ventures, the venture arm of the American enterprise giant. This is Salesforce Ventures’ one of rare investments in India. Existing investors including Lightspeed India and Sequoia Capital India also participated in the round, which brings the five-year old startup’s raise to-date to about $35 million.

Over 500 firms including — Tokopedia, Indorama, JG Summit Group, Zilingo, Zalora, Fave, Adani, Mahindra, Kotak, TVS, National Stock Exchange, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, Dr.Reddy’s, Nivea, Puma, Swiggy, Bigbasket — use Darwinbox’s HR platform to provide more than a million employees of theirs with a range of features in 60 nations, up from about 200 firms across 50 nations in late 2019, said Chaitanya Peddi, co-founder of Darwinbox, in an interview with TechCrunch.

Peddi said the startup has always looked up to Salesforce for inspiration, and investment from the enterprise giant is “nothing sort of a child receiving validation from their father,” he said.

The fundraise caps the most successful year for the startup that started with uncertainty as the coronavirus spread across Asian nations. The startup initially took a hit as its customers scrambled to navigate through the global pandemic, but the last two quarters have been its best to date, said Peddi.

Overall, the startup’s revenue has ballooned by 300% since September 2019, when it last raised money, he said. “In HR tech and SaaS space, we are now only behind SAP and Oracle in India in terms of revenue,” he said.

Dev Khare, a partner at Lightspeed India, an early backer of the startup, said that Darwinbox has become the preferred human capital management solution for Asian conglomerates, governments, and high-growth businesses and multi-national corporations operating in Asia as they witness digital transformation.

Image Credits: Darwinbox

Darwinbox’s platform is built to take care of the entire “hiring to retiring” cycle needs of employees. It handles onboarding of new hires, keeps a tab on their performance, monitors attrition rate, and provides an ongoing feedback loop.

It also provides its customers with a social network for their employees to remain connected with one another and an AI assistant to apply for a leave or set up meetings with quick voice commands from their phones.

Peddi said the startup will deploy the fresh capital to expand to several more countries, especially in more emerging markets in the Middle East Asia and Africa, and broaden its offerings. “We will be leveraging the power of our platform to do a lot more. We are a product-led firm and our focus will remain on innovation in that space,” he said. The startup is also open to exploring opportunities to acquire smaller firms for inorganic growth, he said.

“India is home to one of the world’s youngest population, and by 2050, it is expected to account for over 18% of the global working age population,” said Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and CEO, Salesforce India, in a statement. “This makes technology platforms like Darwinbox, that focuses on workforces, incredibly important. I’m proud that Salesforce is supporting Darwinbox on their journey as they continue to grow and innovate in this space.”

Alex Kayyal, partner and head of international at Salesforce Ventures, told TechCrunch in an interview that the firm helps its partners in a number of ways, including exposing them to the firm’s customers, executives and their networks, and helping startups scale their business.

“We have one of the most innovative and disruptive customer bases that are looking for cloud solutions and digital transformation. So the opportunity to expose companies like Darwinbox to our customer base is something we get really excited about,” said Kayyal. Salesforce Ventures is exploring more investment opportunities in India, he said.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/18/salesforce-leads-15-million-investment-round-in-indian-hr-tech-platform-darwinbox/

Darwinbox, which operates a cloud-based human resource management platform, has raised $15 million in a new financing round as the Indian startup looks to further expand in the country and Southeast Asian markets.

The new round — a Series C — for the Hyderabad-headquartered startup was led by Salesforce Ventures, the venture arm of the American enterprise giant. This is Salesforce Ventures’ one of rare investments in India. Existing investors including Lightspeed India and Sequoia Capital India also participated in the round, which brings the five-year old startup’s raise to-date to about $35 million.

Over 500 firms including — Tokopedia, Indorama, JG Summit Group, Zilingo, Zalora, Fave, Adani, Mahindra, Kotak, TVS, National Stock Exchange, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, Dr.Reddy’s, Nivea, Puma, Swiggy, Bigbasket — use Darwinbox’s HR platform to provide more than a million employees of theirs with a range of features including insurance and early salary as loans in 60 nations, up from about 200 firms across 50 nations in late 2019, said Chaitanya Peddi, co-founder of Darwinbox, in an interview with TechCrunch.

Peddi said the startup has always looked up to Salesforce for inspiration, and investment from the enterprise giant is “nothing sort of a child receiving validation from their father,” he said.

The fundraise caps the most successful year for the startup that started with uncertainty as the coronavirus spread across Asian nations. The startup initially took a hit as its customers scrambled to navigate through the global pandemic, but the last two quarters have been its best to date, said Peddi.

Overall, the startup’s revenue has ballooned by 300% since September 2019, when it last raised money, he said. “In HR tech and SaaS space, we are now only behind SAP and Oracle in India in terms of revenue,” he said.

Dev Khare, a partner at Lightspeed India, an early backer of the startup, said that Darwinbox has become the preferred human capital management solution for Asian conglomerates, governments, and high-growth businesses and multi-national corporations operating in Asia as they witness digital transformation.

Image Credits: Darwinbox

Darwinbox’s platform is built to take care of the entire “hiring to retiring” cycle needs of employees. It handles onboarding of new hires, keeps a tab on their performance, monitors attrition rate, and provides an ongoing feedback loop.

It also provides its customers with a social network for their employees to remain connected with one another and an AI assistant to apply for a leave or set up meetings with quick voice commands from their phones.

Peddi said the startup will deploy the fresh capital to expand to several more countries, especially in more emerging markets in the Middle East Asia and Africa, and broaden its offerings. “We will be leveraging the power of our platform to do a lot more. We are a product-led firm and our focus will remain on innovation in that space,” he said. The startup is also open to exploring opportunities to acquire smaller firms for inorganic growth, he said.

“India is home to one of the world’s youngest population, and by 2050, it is expected to account for over 18% of the global working age population,” said Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and CEO, Salesforce India, in a statement. “This makes technology platforms like Darwinbox, that focuses on workforces, incredibly important. I’m proud that Salesforce is supporting Darwinbox on their journey as they continue to grow and innovate in this space.”

Alex Kayyal, partner and head of international at Salesforce Ventures, told TechCrunch in an interview that the firm helps its partners in a number of ways, including exposing them to the firm’s customers, executives and their networks, and helping startups scale their business.

“We have one of the most innovative and disruptive customer bases that are looking for cloud solutions and digital transformation. So the opportunity to expose companies like Darwinbox to our customer base is something we get really excited about,” said Kayyal. Salesforce Ventures is exploring more investment opportunities in India, he said.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/18/salesforce-leads-15-million-investment-round-in-indian-hr-tech-platform-darwinbox/

Volopay, a Singapore-based startup building a “financial control center” for businesses, announced today it has raised $2.1 million in seed funding. The round was led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, and included participation from Soma Capital, CP Ventures, Y Combinator, VentureSouq, the founders of Razorpay and other angel investors.

The funding will be used on hiring, product development, strategic partnerships and Volopay’s international expansion. It plans to launch operations in Australia later this month. The company currently has about 100 clients, including Smart Karma, Dathena, Medline, Sensorflow and Beam.

Launched in 2019 by Rajith Shaiji and Rajesh Raikwar, Volopay took part in Y Combinator’s accelerator program last year. It was created after chief executive officer Shaji, who worked for several fintech companies before launching Volopay, became frustrated by the process of reconciling business expenses, especially with accounting departments located in different countries. Shaiji and Raikwar also saw that many companies, especially startups and SMEs, struggled to track different kinds of spending, including subscriptions and vendor payments.

Most of Volopay’s clients are in the tech sector and have about 15 to 150 employees. Volopay’s platform integrates multi-currency corporate cards (issued by VISA Corporate), domestic and international bank transfers, automated payments and expense and accounting software, allowing companies to save money on foreign exchange fees and reconcile expenses more quickly.

In order to speed up its development, Volopay integrated Airwallex’s APIs. Its corporate cards offer up to 2% cashback on software subscriptions, hosting and international travel, which Volopay says are the three top expense categories for tech companies, and it in November 2020, it launched a credit facility for corporate cards to help give SMEs more liquidity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Compared to traditional credit products, like credit cards and working capital loans, Shaji said Volopay’s credit facility, which is also issued by VISA Corporate, has a more competitive fixed-free pricing structure that depends on the level of credit used. This means companies know how much they owe in advance, which in turn helps them manage their cashflows more easily. The average credit line provided by Volopay is about $30,000.

Since TechCrunch last covered Volopay in July 2020, it has grown 70% month on month in terms of total funds flowing through its platform, Shaji said. It also launched two new features: a bill pay feature that allows clients to transfer money domestically and internationally with low foreign exchange rates and transaction fees, and the credit facility. The bill pay feature now contributes about 40% to Volopay’s total payment volume, while the credit product makes up 30% of its card spending.

Shaji told TechCrunch that Volopay decided to expand into Australia because because not only is it a much larger market than Singapore, but “SMEs in Australia are very comfortable using paid digital software to streamline internal operations and scale their businesses.” He added that there is currently no other provider in Australia that offers both expense management and credit to SMEs like Volopay.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/18/singapore-based-volopay-raises-2-1-million-seed-round-to-build-a-financial-control-center-for-businesses/

The best thing about 2020 is we survived it. No need to say what the worst thing is, it’s hands down our collective stupidity in the choices we’ve made. That reality has forced us to refactor what we do moving forward.

If we had correctly understood the massive changes ahead, we would not be wondering when we will return to the old, new, or any normal. The normal is what got us here. Unlimited air travel, freedom to do whatever we wanted without regard to the impact it would have on anybody else. Nationalism. What the hell is that all about? Keeping us in, everybody else out.

Take Twitter for one. When it first emerged, it felt like a pipe dream realized. For me, it still feels that way. Good people like it, so do bad people. Bad as in they use the global network to inflict damage on their political enemies. Does that mean the phone is a bad thing, too? Or cars, or popcorn butter? What about dramas? They’re sad, reward winners and losers? Do I wish Hollywood was only allowed to make romcoms? Well, yes I do.

But only if it doesn’t abridge my rights, my freedom to pursue happiness. So when I see Twitter turn into a cesspool, I look for someone to blame. Let’s start with the bad guys. But what if they have a point about something? Their motives may be suspect, or just plain evil. What am I doing reading them anyway. It’s not like I chose them to follow. Well, apparently I did, by listening to people who retweet what these folks spew.

Retweets are another one of these things I love about Twitter. Let’s say I follow someone whose perspective I admire, and they in turn retweet others who they admire. A social cloud forms with interesting characteristics. Implicitly, the pattern of retweets, @mentions, and likes can be plugged into readers or aggregators to reflect trends, emerging news, business analytics, and social dynamics of power, ethics, humor, and stature.

So it’s not like a follow of the bad actors, but it is like I follow their relative position in the stream of those I follow. I can and do rationalize this monitoring of other than the chosen social group as a necessary early warning system for trouble ahead. These signals can be used prophylactically to measure how our message is carrying, but a typical impact is to pigeonhole our views as fodder for those who wish us ill.

Net net, this countervailing energy reduces the sense of fun I have with the global network. If I had to choose no Twitter over this problem, I still choose Twitter. In the early days of social media, I had a front row seat in observing how these little signals could have a surprising impact on the concerns of the day, on the projection of ideas around the network to and with others who together built support, and sometimes, business through the collective group mind.

Has this been lost in the partisan nature of our daily political noise? Of course, just try saying anything about anything and watch the nasty trolls rev up their schtick. Not fun. Also not effective, because the pushback creates a new rhythm of Pee Wee Herman yeah-but-what-am-I dynamics. What to do? How about a @botmention that argues with tagged trolls but silently removes the noise from the feeds of those who @like the @bot tag.

Implementing this semi-public stream is already doable inside a private network, with the “cost” of joining the agreement to provide access to an internal view that makes the stream less noisy and more responsive. We’ve been experimenting with just such a private/public backchannel to support production of the Gillmor Gang, but I’m not here to promote that. More usefully, the network functions efficiently in concert with Twitter.

The events of 2020, and the years leading up to the election and pandemic breakout, make clear that the kind of social media spread we have seen has consequences we should have countered but in fact exacerbated. Yet even in the volatile wind down of the election are some signs of a rebound from playing the chaos card. Whatever you think of Twitter’s history of or lack of backbone development, Jack Dorsey’s red line in the sand was a much needed call to arms against Trump’s bullying.

Even if the actual technology was limited in effect, the application of any pushback at all was a signal of what the world might look like if the election went the other way. The first amplification of that subtle shift came from social media’s biggest customer, mainstream media: pointed pushback in White House press conferences, silent movie montages of Republican senators refusing to answer shouted hallway questions, networks cutting away from events when the falsehood level reached fake mass.

Mitch McConnell’s move to tie additional stimulus help to Trump’s attempt to punish Twitter by repealing Section 230 protection proved effective in running out the clock. It also moved the ball from Trump’s control to the hard numbers of January 20. The Georgia runoff on January 5, followed the next day by the attempt to challenge the electoral college Biden win and the storming of the Capitol, changed everything. Twitter became Trump’s last super power. Note: this edition of the Gang was recorded minutes before Twitter permanently suspended the @realDonaldTrump account.

Well, there is Zoom too. Its swappable background feature lets the ex-resident broadcast to the faithful as though nothing has changed. That’s why he came back from vacation early, to pre-pardon his production staff and hire a shadow cabinet. Secretary of Streaming, Chief Acting Legal Officer, Secretary of Horror Stephen Miller, Secretary of Bacteria Giuliani.

Zoom lets you do this behind a subscription paywall, but now Trump+ is competing against Disney+, Netflix, Apple+, and the bundles designed to lock-in the market until the vaccines take root. Or how about an ACA+ bundle that gives you pre-existing coverage, the latest iPhone, and any three + networks on a rotating basis to encourage competition for stream retention.

from the Gillmor Gang Newsletter

__________________

The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, January 8, 2021.

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

@fradice, @mickeleh, @denispombriant, @kteare, @brentleary, @stevegillmor, @gillmorgang

Subscribe to the Gillmor Gang Newsletter and join the backchannel here on Telegram.

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Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/18/gillmor-gang-twitter/