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Agritech Startups: The Ray of Hope in Indian Agriculture
Technical Report · July 2019
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Agritech Startups:
The Ray of Hope
in Indian
Agriculture
Discussion Paper 10
MANAGE-Centre for Agricultural Extension Innovations, Reforms,
and Agripreneurship (CAEIRA)
National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE)

(An organisation of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India)
Rajendranagar, Hyderabad – 500 030, Telangana State, India
www.manage.gov.in
Published by
(An organisation of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of
India) Rajendranagar, Hyderabad - 500 030, Telangana State, India
©MANAGE, 2019
About the Publication

The research report is based on the research conducted by Mr. Anupam Anand as MANAGE Intern
under the MANAGE Internship Programme for Post Graduate students of Extension Education.
Authors
Mr. Anupam Anand
MANAGE Intern and Ph.D. Research Scholar
Department of Extension Education
Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141004, Punjab, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Saravanan Raj

Director (Agricultural Extension)
Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
e-mail: [email protected]/ [email protected]
Layout Design
Ms. Niharika Lenka
Disclaimer
The views expressed in the document are not necessarily those of MANAGE but are of the
authors’ own. MANAGE encourages the use, reproduction and dissemination of this publication for
personal study and non-commercial purposes only with proper acknowledgement of MANAGE
in Indian Agriculture, Discussion Paper 10, MANAGE-Centre for Agricultural Extension Innovations, Reforms and Agripreneur
Director General’s Message
Smt. V. Usha Rani, IAS

Director General, MANAGE
I congratulate Mr. Anupam Anand, MANAGE Intern and Ph.D. Research Scholar, Punjab Agricultural
University, Ludhiana for selecting relevant topic of the day “Agritech Startups: The Ray of Hope in
Indian Agriculture” and conducting good field survey and analysis of data and relevant literature
for the study.
Increasing demand of innovation in agriculture and declining last mile delivery to farmers has put up a
pressure on the public extension system to perform beyond its designated role of disseminating
information on technologies. The new role demands organizing user/producer groups, linking farmers
to markets, engaging in research planning and technology selection, enable changes in policies and
linking producers to a range of other support and service networks. But however, the Indian extension
system has been considerably weakened over the last two decades in terms of human resources and
capacity. Huge vacancy levels in public extension system particularly in remote and disadvantaged
regions have further constrained the extension support and services to farming community. The lack of these
support and service networks has created an agrarian distress in the country and among the farmers. And
during we notice a surge of Agritech Startups that have become a ray of hope in Indian agriculture.
Agritech Startups are providing relevant and innovative solutions to a number of challenges faced all across
the agricultural value chain. A new wave of budding entrepreneurs and emerging startups in the country are
leading the way in disrupting the age old agriculture system with innovative ideas and affordable
solutions. These startups have become the missing link between the farmers, input dealers, wholesalers,
retailers and consumers connecting each of them to each other and providing strong marketing linkages
and quality produce on time.
The paper in detail analyses the prevalent Agritech sub-sectors in Indian startup ecosystem. Agritech
startups are leveraging technology in the area of market linkages such as retail, B2C and B2B marketplaces
and digital agronomy platforms. Big Data Analytics, Supply Chain/Market-linked Model, FaaS, IoT
Enabled, Engineering- Led Innovation and Miscellaneous other are the major sub-sectors where agritech
startups are coming up. The detailed description of the 20 startups featured in this study reveals that
from ICT apps to farm automation and from weather forecasting to drone use and from inputs retailing
and equipment renting to online vegetable marketing, they do all and everything. Multiple enabling
policies have been implemented to support agri startups, their early take off and successful operations
both by the Central as well as State Governments. Apart from the available schemes and policies to support
agritech startups, an institutional mechanism has been created for smoother takeoff and successful
implementation.
Let me congratulate Dr. Saravanan Raj, Director (Agri. Extn.), MANAGE for guiding the intern in
selecting right topics, applying right research methodology to collect relevant information, analyzing
and suggesting appropriate way to move forward. It’s high time to make agritech startups successful and
propel India forward as a leader in the agri technology sector too.
(V.Usha Rani)
Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................ 1
Small Setup and Big Impact: Startups Changing the World……………………........................... 1
Defining a Startup: The Meaning………………………………………………………………......................... 2
Startups: Gateway to Innovations………………………………………………………………........................ 3
Development of a Startup: The Build Up……………………………………………………...................... 6
Startup Funding: Putting the Fuel in the Startup Engine………………………….......................... 7
Sources of Startup Funding: The Fuel………………………………………………………......................... 13
Startup Ecosystem: Cultivating Ideas………………………………………………………........................... 14
Global Startup Ecosystem………………………………………………………………………….......................... 16
Indian Startup Ecosystem: Announcing Its Enormity to the World…………........................... 20
AgriTech Startups: Redefining Indian Agriculture through Technology Solution............ 34
Rationale of Study………………………………………………………………………………………....................... 46
Research Methodology .......................................................................................................................................... 47
Results and Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………................................. 49
Identification of prevalent Agritech sub-sectors in Indian Startup Ecosystem ........................ 49
Selective Case Studies .................................................................................................................................... 52
Startup Policy and Implementation by Central and State Governments to boost 93

Indian Startup Ecosystem ..............................................................................................................................
Recommendations ................................................................................................................................................... 97
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................................ 98
References ................................................................................................................................................................... 99
Annexures .................................................................................................................................................................... 105
i
List of Tables
Table no. Title Page no.

1. Key features of development stages of startup 6
2. Sources of startup funding 13

3. Startup sub-sector overview globally, 2018 18
4. Key trends and growth drivers of the tech startup hubs 25
5. Growth of unicorn startups in India 28
6. Incubators/Accelerators by type 30
7. Scope of technology intervention in agricultural value chain 36
8. Key areas for startups in agricultural activities 37
9. Some of the key Accelerators and Incubators for agritech sector in 40

India
List of Figures
Fig. no. Title Page no.

1. Startups constantly promoting Innovation 5
2. Startup financing cycle 7
3. Distribution of startups worldwide in 2018, by Industry 17
4. Distribution of Startups in Indian Ecosystem 2018, By Industry 23
5. Distribution of Startups in Indian Ecosystem 2018, by Advanced 23

Tech
6. Key Locations of Startup Hubs in India 24
7. YoY Deals and Amount of Indian Startup Funding 26
8. Agritech startup opportunities in Indian agriculture 35
9. Distribution of Agritech startups according to investor funding 38

rounds
10. Number of Agritech Startups (2013-17) 38
11. Key Indian States Focusing on Agritech Startups 39

Abstract
The startups are an exemplar that great things are done by a series of small things
brought together. Taking one small step at a time, moving from one problem to another
and solving the issues by disruptive innovation is what these startups are trying to achieve.
The startups are not only creating new jobs which means more employment but are also
leaving a ripple effect on the socio-economic fabric of the demography in which they are
operating. The world has become a playfield for these young entrepreneurs as the global
startup revolution continues to grow. Underneath this continued growth, fundamental shifts
are occurring. The fuel that incited the first and second generation startup revolution have
started to decline and a new third wave is taking over the world stage. The era of social apps,
digital media and pure internet companies which were part of first and second generation
revolution are being taken over by sectors viz. FinTech, CleanTech, Cybersecurity, Blockchain,
etc. This change is not only limited to sectors but is also shaking things geographically too. The
dominance of West viz. Silicon Valley and USA is witnessing a decline and the East with
leaders like China and India is on the rise. With this rise, India has become the third largest
startup ecosystem hub. India is home to highest number of unicorn startups after US and
China with 26 unicorns out of 250+ total unicorns globally. At a time where with the
increasing population and demand for better quality and higher quantity of food is required,
the performance pressure on farms are increasing. Agritech startups are such a relevant
solution across the agricultural value chain and they can be in the form of a product, a
service or an application. There is a decent growth of startups in the country which needs a
strong push if we want the agri sector to flourish. India has already built a strong name for
itself in the global startup community. It’s time to make agritech startups successful and
propel India forward as a leader in the agri technology sector too.
Executive summery
Startups play a key role in promoting innovation in a society. Through innovation these
startups are not only challenging the reign of big corporates but are also providing simpler
solutions to the problems they answer. The startups are equipped with novel ideas, are
constantly understaffed, never have enough hours in a day and still possess pragmatic
approach which compels them to find new ways to solve the issues. These startups with
their innovation have come to the aid of stressed farmers and answering to the problems
of Indian Agriculture. The new wave of entrepreneurs and startups have taken upon
themselves to lead the way for disrupting the agriculture sector in India. These startups
want to deploy technology and improve this sector. But with the entry of the startups in the
sector, the important questions that need to be answered are Can disruptive technology bring
reform to sector? And why the startups have started focusing on agriculture sector now
which has been always neglected in past?
The answer to above questions lie in the results exhibited by the countries like Israel, China
and US which have transformed agriculture practices in their country with the use of
technology. Nevertheless the results have not occurred only with the development of new
technology but by taking them to the end users, farmers in this case, at a cheap and
affordable price. The time has come to enunciate agricultural strategies with innovations.
Therefore, leveraging the efforts of agritech startups is imperative. In this backdrop, the
study has brought to light some of these startups that are working tremendously in changing
the face of Indian agriculture by providing farmers with low-cost farming solutions. This study
has highlighted on the prevalent agritech sub- sectors in the Indian startup ecosystem. It is
noteworthy that the startups have decided to employ the Deeptech in solving the problems
faced by farmers. The startups are touching every stage through the agricultural value chain.
The findings revealed that from providing information and knowledge about various
agronomic practices to farmers on one hand. On the other, they are also being connected
directly to input dealers who are providing them with whatever they require right on their
doorstep. These startups have also moved one stage forward and have now connected the
farmers to market accessibility which is one of the biggest problem faced by them. Equipping
the farmers with right tools to grade, assort and even transport their produce, the startups
are empowering them and ensuring that they receive a remunerative price for their produce.
Big Data Analytics, Supply Chain/Market-linked Model, FaaS, IoT Enabled, Engineering-Led
Innovation and Miscellaneous other are the major sub-sectors where agritech startups are
coming up. From weather forecasting to drone use and from inputs retailing and equipment
renting to selling fruits and vegetables online and from farm automation to protected
cultivation, assaying and grading, these startups are revolutionizing Indian agriculture.
Notwithstanding the efforts of startups, even the government have stepped up to support
them. In a bid to double the farmers’ income, the GoI has made 22 regulatory reform to
support startups, launched Startup India with 19 Points Action Plan and hosted an
Agricultural Grand Challenge to provide the startups with an ecosystem to flourish in.
Moreover, the State Governments are not far behind and therefore 27 states and
3 UT have made tremendous policy reforms to uplift the startup ecosystem and improve the
livelihood of not only farmers but all of them who are directly or indirectly involved with
startups. The startups need to keep on innovating. Meanwhile government needs to provide
them with a conducive environment if we need the ecosystem to flourish and reap the
benefits. Agritech startups can change the outlook of agriculture by constant innovation.
Therefore it is the right time to boost their confidence.
Introduction
Small Setup and Big Impact: Startups Changing the World
As the famous saying goes, big things comes in small packages. This proves to be very true
for the emerging startup companies. The startups are proving to be the change engines of the
world. These small setup companies are revolutionizing their industries with new ideas and
development of disruptive technologies. Some of the most impressive new companies made
waves recently, and with their innovation, it’s easy to see why these are the startups
changing the world (Kasteler, 2017). According to Didar (2016), it’s a general perception that
startups needs to be in developed country where all resources are available. But in reality,
startups need to be in countries with greater needs which provide excellent opportunities.
Underdeveloped or developing countries, countries in conflict or countries new to
technological advancement prove to be an exceptional breeding ground for the startups.
Each of these countries with their needs offer untapped problems that startups could offer
and take advantage not to only just make profit but also make an impact on the socio-
economic status of the country.
It is well known that startups are small companies but they play a significant role in the
economic growth. They are responsible for creating new jobs which mean more employment
which leads to improved economy. Not only these startups promote economics but also
spur innovation and generate competition. Startups create a ripple effect on the socio-
economic fabric of the demography in which they operate (Kola, 2014). Startups have a
direct-impact on the cities that they make their homes. Look at how Infosys has changed
Bangalore, Alibaba impacted Hangzhou, Microsoft changed Redmond and Google transformed
Mountain View, California. They directly impact the growth of cities in which these startups
grew. Employment opportunities increased, experienced talents also started moving to these
places in pursuit of challenging and high growth career. As the demand for highly talented
people increased in these cities, it saw a surge in inflow of recent graduates. As more and
more college graduates started settling down in these cities, lifestyle patterns and culture
also saw a wave of change. Startups can contribute to structural change by introducing new
knowledge-intensive products and services (OECD 2013). These startups boosted the economy
with revolutionary technology and created new industries over time. And when they went public,
they truly became money-making engines for not just the owners but also for the employees
and shareholders. A research by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor South Africa (2012)
states that one third of dynamics of countries’ economic growth can be attributed to the
dynamics of startup entrepreneurship. They also contribute to the promotion of the research
and innovation system and introduce values of proactivity into the society. Startup companies
are thus those that have ambition and potential to become gazelles that can, with quick
growth, create a large number of new jobs. The majority of developed countries in a
knowledge-based society encourage startup ecosystem from the aspect of investment into
the future as well as from the aspect of actively designing long-term economic policy. This
prompts for the underdeveloped as well as developing countries to increase investment in
1
these startups to promote innovation,
2
new jobs and economic growth, encouraging competitive dynamics into the economic
system, to promote research-innovation system and to develop a sense of proactivity into the
society. Startups can reshape the world and in coming years more numbers of startups will
emerge with innovation and creativity. Entrepreneurship is the only way to enhance the
economic growth of a nation. And a small idea can be termed into big innovative solution
which can change the future.
Defining a Startup: The Meaning
The Oxford Dictionary defines startup as “a newly established business” while according to
Merriam-Webster, startup means “the act or an instance of setting in operation or
motion” or “a fledging business enterprise”. The American Heritage Dictionary suggest it is
“a business or undertaking that has recently begun operation.” But the question here is what
really comes to our mind when you hear the word “STARTUP”? The common answers that
which we usually get are influenced by popular media, depicting startup as unsecured job,
failed companies, free food, beanbags, Friday beers, open office landscapes and sleeping
pods whereas no one recognizes the hard work put on by the guys grinding in their garage.
While from the words of Eric Ries, the creator of the Lean Startup Methodology, “A startup
is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of
extreme uncertainty.”
As cited in the OED (1989 edn) start-up, in the business sense, is first recorded in 1976:
1976 Forbes 15 Aug. 6/2 The unfashionable business of investing in startups in the electronic
data processing field.
Start-up company arrived a year later:
1977 Business Week (Industr. edn) 5 Sept. : An incubator for startup companies, especially in the
fast- growth, high-technology fields.
(Source: Anonymous, 2017)
At present the word startup can be defined in several manners and according to
different circumstances, but according to Investopedia, “a startup is a young company that is
just beginning to develop. Startups are usually small and initially financed and operated by a
handful of founders or one individual. These companies offer a product or service that is not
currently being offered elsewhere in the market, or that the founders believe is being
offered in an inferior manner” (Anonymous, 2018a). The website “startup commons” defines
startup as “a team of entrepreneurial talent developing new innovations, in identifiable and
investable form, in progress to validate and capture the value of the created innovation - with
ambition to grow fast with scalable business model for maximum impact” (Anonymous,
2018b). When it comes to defining a startup, you can either think about it in terms of the
actual business or you can focus on the spirit and mentality. However, a startup mentality
can include existing businesses, as long as they operate with the same attitude on which
they were founded. And what are those key principles? These are fast- paced decision making
and problem-solving attitude, founders idea to create a change, self-funded or receiving
funding from potential investors, idea that can be applied and marketed globally,
quick growth, engulfed with limitations in initial years, solve a problem through a new, or
better product or services than what is currently available, collaborative team culture and
lastly the most important principle of uncertainty, risk and failures associated with any new
business or a startup (Waterworth, 2016; DeMers 2017; Cook 2018). With all of the above
taken into account, it’s worth pointing out that change is the core to the startup meaning.
Therefore, in the end it’s difficult to say whether a startup is definitively one thing or another,
except for the fact that these startups have the ability to bring change and be different. The
enthusiasm, energy, and sense of possibility empowers them to the feeling that anything
could happen and that there is a solution to every problem.
Startups: Gateway to Innovations
Startups play a key role in innovation processes (Colombo and Piva, 2008; Davila et al., 2003;
Mustar et al., 2008). According to the well-known definition by Steve Blank (Blank, 2010) a
startup is a company, a partnership or temporary organization designed to search for a
repeatable and scalable business model. Through the startup phase, new ideas are brought to
the market and transformed in economically sustainable enterprises. New firms are artefacts
for transforming entrepreneurial judgement into profit (Spender 2014).
Innovation is a strong pillar to the success of every startup known in the world, Business that
are not able to invest in research and development dies in the striving market. The capital
cycle has become the main feature of the innovative market, as indicated by Gompers and
Lerner, 2004; Kaplan and Schoar, 2005; Gompers et al., 2008.
It is to be noticed that these independent startups are performing well in innovating

things compared to big companies who have deep pocket and well established and dedicated
R&D labs. According to Schuyler Brown, VP of marketing at NOMi (pronounced “know me”),
the startups are effective in innovating is because the people working in startups work with
the feeling that they are about to change the world which acts as a strong motivator
(Hessman, 2014). Startups are constantly understaffed, never enough hours in the day and
there are never enough resources which compels to find new ways to solve the issues
leading to innovation (Goeldi, 2018).
Paul Schwada, Director of Business Innovation Consultancy Firm Locomotion Solutions adds
that the advantage is not that the startup has better people or necessarily even a more
innovative spirit (Hessman, 2014). But it’s what they lack. Specifically, he mentioned that it
comes down to three things:
• Precedent: Well established business use highly constructed and complicated tools to
solve the problems for decades. That alone precludes them from envisioning a new
disruptive tool or method to solve the same problem. Whereas as startups have no fixed
method or tool to solve the problems, it ultimately leads to development of an
innovative method.
• Momentum: The highly constructed tools employed by these big companies are too
expensive, and the business is usually centered on the price it takes in construction. Any
disruptive method employed can destroy those balance sheets.
• Processes: Even if somehow, the established companies are able to get past the
above mentioned two things, they will still have the entwined web of legal systems and
processes to overcome. And this point alone proves as a significant agility advantage for
the startups (Anonymous 2014; Koziy, 2014; Anonymous, 2016).
alue customers, but eventually, it started focusing on high value customers as well. At AirBnB, one can find the houses
hese days.
Schwada further adds that the problem for big companies is not getting the innovation
going inside, but the real problem lies in getting it to the street. In simple words, he
explains that a well-established business follows the flywheel analogy. When a company is
used to pushing the flywheel in one direction and getting the momentum going, it
becomes difficult to suddenly start pushing the flywheel in other direction. But a startup, on
the other hand, has no momentum to overcome, no process in place and no precedent to
contradict, can push the flywheel in any direction that they like (Hessman, 2014;
Anonymous 2016).
Nair (2016) in his article mentions that there are over 100 million new business are
launched every year, which translates into roughly 11,000 startups being launched every
hour. Therefore, it is essential for startups to keep innovating if they want to survive.
According to Nair (2016), the advantages any startup can gain from innovation are as
follows:
• Competitive edge: Many new startups have managed to grab a new market by launching a
totally disruptive or new technology, but have failed to retain their edge later since they
were not able to keep up with the pace of innovation in the market. This lack of constant
innovation in the startups acts as one of the main reason for the startup exit from the
competition
or market. It is always noticed that innovation provides startups with an edge over
their competition and helps them to become a market leader.
• More efficient startups: If innovation is the core of your startup, it becomes easier to
solve the problems as well as huge challenges. When the full force of the startup is
focused on bettering the end product or process, it will eventually lead to greater process,
products or services and huge advantage for the business.
• Creates entry barriers for competitors: When you are a constant disruptor or innovator, it
becomes the best way to stay at the top and become an industry leader. The zeal to
develop next level of innovation and experiment ensures that you stay ahead of
competitors.
• Compete with larger well-established companies: Well-established companies have more
resources at their disposal and can easily implement and adopt new technologies. In
order to compete with them, startups need to be step ahead and adopt a culture of
innovation.
Fig. 1: Startups constantly promoting Innovation
Majority of the startups fail after sometime due to lack of ideas to better their product,
process or services. So it’s very simple math that if a startup wants to stay in competition, it
needs to adopt a culture of innovation in its DNA (Nair, 2016).
Development of a Startup: The Build Up
Startups are never successful overnight and it’s important to understand that running one is a
process that requires patience, perseverance, and a realistic evaluation of its evolutionary
stage (Yasuda, 2016). The website “startupcommons.org” describes the development of a
startup in the perspective of “idea to product, to growing business” and from “talent to
team, to real organization” in balanced manner. Like any other growing thing, businesses
have lifecycles. Startups, in particular, follow a specific set of stages as they develop.
Though the time spent in each stage will be different for every growing company, there are
six main phases. Why does it matter what Startup stage your company is presently in?
“Knowing where the startup is in its journey will help manage time and resources efficiently.”
With a sense of what’s to come, the development can be effectively planned for success in
later phases. Here’s a look at the six stages of a Startup and what can be expected from
each one (Segal 2016; Anonymous, 2018c).
Table 1: Key features of development stages of startup
Stages Name Key Features of Development

Stages I Ideation • Entrepreneurial ambition of the founder(s)
• Potential development of the product or service idea for a
big enough target market
• Some initial business models and ideas on how the idea
would create value or make money
• Presence of single person or a vague team
• No confirmed roles or commitment in the team structure
yet.
Stages II Concept • Defining of mission and vision of the startup with initial
development strategy
• Setting up of key milestones and goals for next few years
• Formation of core team consisting of co-founders
with complimentary skills and ownership plan and
rights
• Inclusion of some additional members for the requirement
specific skill sets along with ownership.
Stages III Commitement • Committed skills balanced founding team sharing same vision,
values and attitudes
• Building the MVP or Minimum Viable Product for the users
to test their business idea
• Signing of SHA: Shareholder Agreement among the co-
founders
• It includes milestones that need to be achieved
• Commitment of time and money shared by each
shareholder
• SHA signed for next three years with vesting terms
Stages IV Validation • Most important stage from the point of view of the
founder(s), employees, initial customers and angel investors
through initial user growth
• Initial Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) identified
• Founders are struggling to find the right product
strategy & brand positioning that would allow them to
attract potential Series A/B venture investment
• Most of the startups lose their plot during this stage of
business.
Stages V Scaling up • Focus on KPI based growth in terms of users, customers
and revenues or market share in the target market
• Potential to grow fast
• Received series A funding for the startup
• Maximum time involved in hiring resources, improvement
and distribution of product to target population and
implementing new or established process.
Stages VI Establishment • Have achieved great growth that can be expected to continue
of startup • Easy to attract funding and customers now
• Depending on vision, mission and goals will continue to
function “like a startup”
• Founder(s) or Investors may decide to exit or continue with
the company
Source: Aggarwal, 2015; Segal, 2016; Yasuda, 2016; Anonymous, 2018c.
A minimum viable product (MVP) is a development technique in which a new product or

website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final, complete set
of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product’s
initial users.
(Source: Aggarwal, 2015)
Startup Funding: Putting the Fuel in the Startup Engine
Every startup, regardless of the nature and size of its operation, requires funding to convert
its innovative ideas into reality. It is relatively very easy to have a startup idea, however, it is
quite complicated to bring the startup through the stages of funding to bear fruits. Most of the
startups generally fail because of their inability to raise sufficient funds. After all, you need
some money or capital to keep your business going at every stage (Anonymous, 2014;
Zenn, 2017).
Fig. 2: Startup financing cycle (Anonymous, 2019)
The startup funding landscape has changed significantly over the past few years in world.
While five to ten years ago the options available to startups were few, lately we’ve witnessed an
important surge in Venture Capital available for startups at all stages. From seed to growth,
from Series A to Series C.
This increase in capital has been accompanied by the creation and development of
alternative financing vehicles such as crowdfunding, investment syndicates and new and fresh
Venture Capital firms that bring different approaches to the market (Novoa, 2017).
Q4 2018 Closes Out a Record Year for the Global Startup Funding
Make no bones about it: 2018 was one heck of a year for the global startup investment
market, and the fourth quarter closed it out on strong footing. It was a year of superlatives:
the most amount of money invested in the highest number of private tech company financing
events on record; the largest venture capital deals in history; the rise and rise of supergiant
venture rounds; and the elephantine funds that shake the market with every deal they
make. A resurgence in late-stage venture funding drove the global market’s dollar volume
totals higher in the final quarter of 2018. Crunchbase projects that roughly $91.4 billion was
invested in Q4, up about 2.4 percent from Q3. The YoY change from 2017 to 2018 saw a
increase of 42.9 percent. This rounds out two solid years of quarter-over-quarter growth.
According to Crunchbase data, global dollar volume figures increased every quarter since Q4
2016. Zooming out to annual numbers for a moment, the results of that consistent growth
become readily apparent. In 2018, private companies raised over three times as much capital as
they did just four years prior.
(Source: Rowley, 2019)
The main concern for these startup firms is not only limited up to the fact that how these
sources of finance are successfully acquired but also how these sources are effectively
implemented once they are made available, since the startup firms lack both the experience
and expertise in dealing with the core business operations (Goldberg, 2018). Financing for
startups is clearly entering a disruptive period. In a scramble for precious resources, a
startup may find itself drawing on a hybrid combination of financing sources, and these
sources may come into play in no set order. As a precursor to understanding the new age
of startup financing, we feel it is still important to become familiar with the different investment
phases. The major investment phases of a startup cycle are as follows:
PRE-SEED STAGE (Early stage, Pre-product)
This stage is considered to be the starting point where the founder(s) tries to convert the idea
into a business opportunity. The founder and certain key personnel are the main employees of
the firm. This stage requires a small funding for the research where the viability of an idea is
assessed, it is determined whether similar thing has been done before, costs of the product
development are determined and a business model is formulated. In this stage the possible
forces of funding
are mostly self-financed (savings), FFF (Family, Friends & Fools), angel investors, accelerators and
lately a new breed of funding method known as crowdfunding. The risks of failure to survive
and transit into the next stages are very high. As the funds are low during this stage,
refinement and (re)alignment of the product should be the main focus. Better adjustments are
needed to upgrade the product and avoid the “Valley of Death” where perfectly good concepts
lie fallow due to lack of funding (Yasuda, 2016; Zenn, 2017, Kelly, 2010; Itti; 2017).
The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of
covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or
service is bringing in revenue from real customers. During the death valley curve, additional
financing is usually scarce, leaving the firm vulnerable to cash flow requirements.
(Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/death-valley-curve.asp https://www.forbes.com/

sites/martinzwilling/2013/02/18/10-ways-for-startups-to-survive-the-valley-of-death/#45ef713669ef)
SEED STAGE (Early stage, Immature product)
This stage focuses on orienting the company in the broader marketplace and developing a
deeper understanding of what the customer wants and how to refine the product according to
their taste. This is one of the early stage where we have a product or service which may be
almost complete or be immature. Although the product or idea is stll immature, it has got
a name, a brand, but most of the funding at this stage still comes via bootstrapping or the
generosity of friends, family or through som crowfunding, incubator, accelarator money. Micro
venture capital firms and investmnent syndicate have also started appearing in this stage to
fund the startups. The focus of this stage is achieving a product market fit as well as building
it overall. Another important key aspect of this stage is gaining traction in the trarget market.
The seed stage is also the time when you should find any necessary partners such as
development companies, designers or creative agencies, and potentially public relations and
market research firms (Yasuda, 2016; Zenn, 2017, Kelly, 2010; Itti; 2017).
According to crunchbase report, pre-seed stage and seed stage deals accounted for approximately
59 percent of all deal volume but only five percent of the total dollar volume. What angel and
seed-stage deals lack in size, they make up for in number.
Between Q3 and Q4 of 2018, both number of deals and investment declined somewhat by
5.3 percent and 3.2 respectively. But on the other hand, YoY change saw a growth of 44.9
percent and 30.7 percent increase in capital invested and number of deals from 2017 to 2018
respectively. Approximately 20,250 angel and seed-stage transactions took place in 2018. For
the entirety of 2018, $14.94 billion was invested in seed-stage deals. That’s an over 50
percent increase from 2017’s total of $9.717 billion. The most active angel and seed
investtors in 2018 were “Y Combinator” and “500 Startups” with 266 and 202 rounds of deals
globally. Of course, there’s also the largely incalculable amount of money solo founders and
fledgling companies raised from individual angel investors and through informal
“friends and family and fools” rounds. Those small but numerous transactions are difficult
to track,
but they no doubt add
up. (Source: Rowley,
2019)
EARLY STAGE DEALS
SERIES A (Early stage, Maturing product)
The goal of the Series A stage funding is to position the startup for future growth, get all the
cards settled in a row and prepare for expansion in the next stages. By this stage the
idea should be gaining traction and should be creating a good amount of buzz among the
tech or business press and amongst the key influencers for the target group. This is also the
stage where business needs to be optimized, counterbalance any financial deficit, correct the
mistakes that were made along the way and most importantly starting to explore new
markets and demographics. During the Series A stage, the startups are working with venture
capitalists and angel investors to further refine and improve the original concept, grow the
team, find partners, and decrease the burn rate of the investment by VC and establish solid
unit economic principles. Basically, now is the time to set the startup up for future growth
and success. This is also the stage where the company starts getting recognized in the main
target audience and starts expanding to other groups beyond the initial target group. Various
publications start spreading the news about the startup growth and its USP. This stage
depicts growth of the seedling of idea off the ground into a viable business (Alisha, 2016;
Anonymous, 2017c; Zenn, 2017; Troung, 2016).
SERIES B (Early stage, Established product)
By the time startup enters this stage, the company and the products should be fairly
well established, and the main focus should be on expanding both internally by growing
the team and externally by growing in target audience more or by possibly acquiring
complimentary or competing companies and/or technology. As the previous rounds have been
fuelled by relatively preliminary signs of growth, from a promising idea, through leading
indicators of product-market fit, to early traction and first signs of revenue growth. This is
the time for continued growth in every way, shape, and form. In practical terms, Series B
investment might allow a startup to make expansive hires (across business development,
strategic accounts, marketing and customer success), expand into different market segments or
experiment with different revenue streams, and in dramatic instances, even buy-out
businesses that offer a competitive advantage. In layman language, the investors are looking
for the next stage of growth: the ability to take everything that has been learned from
previous stages and make it work at a larger scale. Therefore this stage attracts increase in
funding from sources like investment banks, private equity firms, and larger venture capital
companies (Alisha, 2016; Anonymous, 2017c; Zenn, 2017; Troung, 2016).
In Q4 of 2018, early stage deal volume accounted for approx. 33 percent of all deal volume
whereas it had a share of 32 percent in total dollar volume. There was an increase of
38.5 percent in the YoY change in capital invested and an increase of 26.5 percent in the
number of deals at early stage. According to Crunchbase, 2018 was a record setting year for
early stage investment. The data indicated that approx. 11,250 early stage transactions took
place worldwide which was significantly higher jump from 2014-17. The total dollar volume
investment also went up with $117.65 billion invested in the early stage during the course of
2018. It was estimated to be 57 percent more than the 2017’s total of $74.9 billion. Over
8,500 unique investors contributed to early-stage funding rounds in 2018. “IDG Capital” and “Y
Combinator” topped the charts of most active early stage investors in 2018 globally with 69
and 60 count of rounds respectively.
LATE STAGE DEALS
SERIES C, D, E…. (Late stage, Fully matured product)
During Series C+ investment, the owners, as well as the investors, are pretty cautious about
funding this round. The more the investment rounds, the more release of the business’ equity
takes place. Series C rounds are done to fuel large scale expansion, like moving into new
market (commonly international) or to encourage acquisitions of other complimentary or
competing businesses. After Series C, there’s theoretically no limit to the number of investment
rounds a startup can raise: some companies will go on to raise investment through Series D,
E and beyond. Given the relatively low number of startups that make it to this point,
there’s also a huge amount of variance in the amounts raised, with investment determined on
a case-by-case basis (Alisha, 2016; Chauhan, 2017; Zenn, 2017; Troung, 2016).
In the Q4 of 2018, late stage was proven to be the king of all with late stage dollar volume
accounting to be 55 percent of all total dollar volume although when the deal volume
accounted for just 7 percent of all total deal volume. According to projections from Crunchbase,
approx. 2,330 late-stage transactions took place in 2018. That’s an over 40 percent jump
from 2017’s projected total of just over 1,600 deals. Yearly totals for late-stage dollar volume
rose. For the entirety of 2018, Crunchbase projections indicated that a staggering $192.2
billion was invested in late-stage deals, worldwide. Jumping over 80 percent, 2018’s late-stage
deals hauled in nearly twice 2017’s total of $104.9 billion. In 2018, more money was invested in
late-stage ventures than the entire global VC market invested in 2016 (approximately $168
billion, total). More than 3,200 unique investors participated in late-stage venture deals in 2018.
“Tencent Holdings” and “Goldman Sachs” led the list of most active late stage investors in
2018 globally with 47 counts of rounds held by each of the two equally.
11
11
BRIDGE LOANS & MEZZANINE FINANCING (Later stage, Maturing to Mature product)
Bridge financing is when investors invest in a startup business with a short term loan in order
to help it reach the next round of funding, on the basis that they will receive their money
back. Basically, it is used to ‘bridge’ the gap between investments to keep a startup company
afloat. Startups use bridge financing or a ‘bridge round’ in order to help them get to a
significant round of funding such as an equity funding or the sale of the company. On the
other hand, Mezzanine financing is generally offered to companies that have a track record in
their industry, an established reputation and product, a history of profitability and a viable
expansion plan for the business, such as through expansions, acquisitions or an Initial Public
Offering (IPO). These types of loans last six to twelve months and are typically paid back by
funds raised during an IPO, since they serve to bridge the gap between the end of late stage
and the point of a business reaching maturity. At this point, a startup (if it can still be
considered a startup company once it has reached this stage) is typically worth at least $100
million (Alisha, 2016; Chauhan, 2017; Zenn, 2017; Troung, 2016).
IPO (Late stage, Fully matured product)
An initial public offering of success is a crucial moment for a startup. It’s a sign of success. It
also comes with its share of costs. This is when you’re ready to become a publicly traded
company, have been valued at over $100 million, and are getting to the point where your
brand might be a household or at least commonly recognized name in your vertical or niche.
Once the company is listed on one of the international stock exchanges, it is time to
celebrate and join the public market, and even consider launching more products,
approaching secondary markets, and/or expanding to new regions of the world. This is the
end of the road, at least for many entrepreneurs, once the company goes public. It’s not only
about the money. A successful IPO spells out success for a company. It generates interest
and can be a signal to the top talent in the industry that this company has made it. This can
also be a boost to employees’ pride, especially after sticking with a startup through thick and
thin (Alisha, 2016; Chauhan, 2017; Zenn, 2017; Troung, 2016; Yasuda, 2016; Reiff, 2019).
Earlier this year, it was too early to tell if the 2018 IPO cycle would bear out. Few
startups went public, and a horde of richly-valued unicorns sat on the sidelines simply
waiting. The year 2018 has produced a host of technology IPOs. The year has seen a host of
Chinese companies going public domestically, a brace of hardware IPOs, and SaaS has done
well in terms of offerings, and results. Startups such as Tencent Music, MOGU, Weidai,
Niu.com, SolarWinds, Anaplan, Elastic, UpWork, CooTek, SurveyMonkey, Viomi and 37
others went public in 2018. The list is not complete as it was not possible to cover every
countries IPOs offering. Some big names likes Xiaomi’s IPO, Jia.com and others also went
public.
(Source: Wilhelm et al., 2018)
12
Sources of Startup Funding: The Fuel
A brief description about the various funding sources/agencies at various stages of startup
growth:
Table 2: Sources of startup funding
PRE-SEED & SEED STAGE
Personal Investment & FFF (Family, Friends & Fools)

A founder will often invest personal cash balances into a startup. This is a cheap form of
finance and it is readily available. Investing personal savings maximizes the control of the
founder over the business. It is also a strong signal of commitment to outside investors or
providers of finance. Friends and family who are supportive of the business idea provide
money either directly to the founder or into the business. This can be quicker and cheaper
to arrange (certainly compared with a standard bank loan) and the interest and repayment
terms may be more flexible than a bank loan. However, borrowing in this way can add to the
stress faced by an entrepreneur, particularly if the business gets into difficulties.
Angel Investors
An angel investor is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business startup,
usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors typically use
their own money, unlike venture capitalists who take care of pooled money from many
other investors and place them in a strategically managed fund. Though angel investors
usually represent individuals, the entity that actually provides the fund may be a limited
liability company (LLC), a business, a trust or an investment fund, among many other kinds
of vehicles. The effective internal rate of returns for a successful portfolio for angel
investors ranges from 20 percent to 30 percent. Though this may look good for investors
and seem too expensive for entrepreneurs with early-stage businesses, cheaper sources of
financing such as banks are not usually available for such business ventures. This makes
angel investments perfect for entrepreneurs who are still financially struggling during the
startup phase of their business.
Accelerators
Accelerators have proven to be of vital importance for new ventures, and their assistance
has often the crucial difference between success and failure in the entrepreneurial
circuit. One of the main reasons that entrepreneurs and founding teams choose the
accelerator path is for the
money. Accelerators typically offer seed money in exchange for equity in the company. This may
range from $10,000 to over $120,000.
Crowdfunding
Crowfunding is a method of raising small amounts of capital from a large number of
individuals to finance a new business venture. This approach taps into the collective efforts
of a large pool of individuals primarily online via social media and crowdfunding platforms
and leverages their networks for greater reach and exposure. There are more than 600
crowdfunding platforms around the world, with fundraising reaching billions of dollars
annually, according to the research firm Massolution.
Micro VC Firms
Exactly like it sounds – a Micro VC fund is a smaller version of a traditional VC fund.
Sometimes they are referred to as “seed stage funds.” The generally accepted
characteristics of a Micro VC are: a. fund is under $100M (though many are less than $50M),
b. investments range from $25K to
$500K and c. initial investment at the seed stage.
Micro venture capital is money invested to seed early-stage emerging companies with
amounts of finance that is typically less than that of traditional venture capital. Most micro
venture capital firms pursue startups that are at their seed stage because of their lower initial
cost basis. Though there is a high probability that the majority of these startups will not
survive long enough to reach a Series A round of funding, micro venture capital firms are
willing to make the investment because startups generally do not require large sums of
capital to bring a product to market, and because they believe that it requires only a few
successful companies for them to see profitable returns.
EARLY STAGE
Venture Capital Firms

Venture capital is financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that
are believed to have long-term growth potential. Venture capital generally comes from well-
off investors, investment banks and any other financial institutions. However, it does not always
take just a monetary form; it can be provided in the form of technical or managerial
expertise. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange
for equity, or an ownership stake, in the companies they invest in.
LATE STAGE
Private Equity Firms

A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing
and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a
variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leveraged buyout, venture
capital, and growth capital. Firms can keep the holdings, or sell these stakes to private investors,
institutional investors (government and pension funds), and hedge funds. Private equity firms
can either be privately held, or a public company listed on a stock exchange.
Source: Zwilling, 2010; Anonymous, 2015; Zwilling, 2015; Anonymous, 2018d; Shane, 2019
Startup Ecosystem: Cultivating Ideas
A startup ecosystem is formed by people, startups in their various stages and various types of
organizations in a location (physical or virtual), interacting as a system to create and scale
new startup companies. These organizations can be further divided into categories such as
universities, funding organizations, support organizations (like incubators, accelerators, co-working
spaces etc.), research organizations, service provider organizations (like legal, financial services
etc.) and large corporations (Anonymous, 2019). Different organizations typically focus on
specific parts of the ecosystem function and startups at their specific development
stage(s).
Composition of Startup Ecosystem Organization and Activities Involved

• Ideas, inventions and research, with Startup Activities
i.e. Intellectual Property Rights • Universities
(IPR) • Advisory and mentoring organizations
• Entrepreneurship Education • Startup incubators
• Startups at various stages • Startup accelerators
• Entrepreneurs
• Co-working spaces
• Service providers
(consulting, accounting,
legal, etc.)
• Event organizers
• Startup team members • Startup competitions
• Angel Investors • Startup business model
• Startup mentors evaluators
• Startup advisors • Business angel networks
• Other business oriented people • Venture capital firms
• People from other organizations with • Equity crowdfunding portals
startup activities • Corporates (telos, banking,
• Startup events health, food, etc.)
• Startup blogs
People from these roles are regarded as linked together through shared events, activities, locations
and interactions. As startup ecosystems are generally defined by the network of interactions
among people, organizations and their environment, they can come in many types but are
usually better known as startup ecosystems of specific cities or online communities
(Anonymous, 2017d).
In addition, resources like skills, time and money are also essential components of a startup
ecosystem. The resources that flow through ecosystems are obtained primarily from the
people and organizations that are active part of those startup ecosystems. By events and
meetings with and between organizations and different people, these interactions play a
key role in the movement of resources through the system helping to create new
potential startups or strengthening the already existing ones and hence influencing the
quantity of startups build. Failures of Startups, release people with improved skills and time
for either establishing a new Startup or joining an already existing one (Raaghav, 2016).
External and Internal Factors Controlling Startup Functioning
Startup ecosystems are controlled by both external and internal factors. External factors as
financial climate, big market disruptions and big companies transitions, control the overall
structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it. Startup ecosystems being
dynamic entities— invariably, they are initially in formation stages and once established are
subject to periodic disturbances (like the financial issues) passing afterwards to the
recovering process from some of those past disturbances (Goyal, 2015; Raaghav, 2016).
Startup ecosystems in similar environments but located in different parts of the world can
end up doing things differently simply because they have a different entrepreneurial culture and
resources pool (Ressi, 2017). The introduction of non-native people knowledge and skills can
also cause substantial shifts in the ecosystem functions.
Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are also controlled by them and are
often subject to feedback loops. While some of the resource inputs are generally controlled
by external processes like financial climate and market disruptions, the availability resources
within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors like people and organizations ability to
contribute towards the ecosystem. Other internal factors include startups success and
failures succession along types of people and available skills. Although people exist and
operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external
factors like financial climate (Anonymous, 2018e; Debb, 2017).
Startup ecosystems provide a variety of goods and services upon which other people
and companies depend on and thus, the principles of startup ecosystem management
suggest that rather than managing individual people or organizations, resources should be
managed at the level of the startup ecosystem itself.
Global Startup Ecosystem
The global startup revolution continues to grow. The Q4 of 2018 saw a whopping $91.4
billion investment compared to overall investment of $140 billion in the year of 2017. The
total value creation of the global startup economy from 2015 to 2017 reached $2.3 trillion.
Underneath this continued growth, fundamental shifts are occurring. The types of companies
that fueled the first and second generation of global startup ecosystems viz. social media
apps, digital media, and other pure internet companies are declining. Top startup hubs like
Silicon Valley, London, and New York continue to dominate top-level activity and maintain
their status as the top performers for most sub-sectors. But we see strong up and coming
ecosystems in specific sectors like Fintech, Cybersecurity and Blockchain (GSER, 2018).
Highlights of Global Startup Ecosystem
Top 4 Growing Sub-Sectors

• #1 Adv. Manufacturing & Robotics (189% 5-year increase in early stage funding deals)
• #2 Agtech & New Food (171% 5-year increase)
• #3 Blockchain (163% 5-year increase)
• #4 Artificial Intelligence, Big Data & Analytics (77.5% 5-year increase)
Top 3 Declining Sub-Sectors

• #1 Adtech (35% 5-year decline in early stage funding deals)
• #2 Gaming (27% 5-year decline in early stage funding deals)
• #3 Digital Media (27% 5-year decline in early stage funding deals)
These declining sub-sectors are primarily associated with first and second wave of the internet.
Agtech and New Food, not shown on this graph, had an even higher quarterly revenue growth,
despite a smaller number of IPOs. Top accelerators like Y Combinator also reflect this shift on some
level: 18% of YC’s most recent batch of companies are in Biotech and Health (GSER, 2018).
Distribution of Startups Worldwide in 2018, by Industry
This statistic shows the distribution of startups worldwide in 2018, by industry. In 2018,
Fintech startups accounted for 7.1 percent of all global startups, whereas only 2.1 percent
were Cleantech startups.
Fig. 3: Distribution of startups worldwide in 2018, by Industry (Anonymous, 2018f)
Startup Sub-sector Overview Globally, 2018
The startups sector is majorly divided into 11 sub-sectors as depicted in Table. The perusal of
the data in Table reveals that Fintech sector had the maximum global share of 7.1 percent
whereas the least global share was of Agtech with 0.6 percent of the global share. The
highest funding value growth for 2012-17 was shown by Advanced Manufacturing & Robotics
sector with 1386 percent while the average funding growth was at 377 percent. It is
interesting to note that the Agtech sector had the least share of the total global share of
startups by industry but was also the least in global share of startup exits with just only 0.5
percent of the total global share of startup exits. The sub-sectors viz. Health and Life Sciences,
Cleantech, Gaming and Adtech showed declining startup growth with -0.3 percent, -9.7 percent,
-4.2 percent and -6.9 percent respectively. Health and Life Sciences sector saw the maximum
share of startup exits at 10.9 percent suggesting that maximum number of startups exited in this
sector. The minimum funding growth was seen in the Adtech sector with 50.3 percent
growth.
Table 3: Startup Sub-sector Overview Globally, 2018
Startup Output Funding Exits

Global Share Startup Total Funding Global Share
Sub-Sector
Growth* Value Growth# of Exits
Avg.: 4.3 Avg.: 4.5 Avg.: 377 NA
Artificial Intelligence 5.0 12.9 463 8.2
Blockchain 1.5 17.9 1321 1.3
Advanced Manufacturing 1.3 15.3 1386 1.4
& Robotics
Agtech & New Food 0.6 14.3 1143 0.5

Fintech 7.1 6.8 460 7.9
Health and Life Sciences 6.8 -0.3 312 10.9
Cybersecurity 0.7 4.6 332 1.6
Cleantech 2.1 -9.7 147 NA
Edtech 2.8 7.4 291 2.1
Gaming 4.7 -4.2 225 2.9
Adtech 3.3 -6.9 50.3 5.4
Source: GSER, 2018, *2008-16 annual average, #2012-17, figures are in percentages
Growth and Decline of Sub-Sectors
These sub-sectors, just like products and startup ecosystems, evolve through lifecycles. The
first phase of the lifecycle is spurred by some sort of catalyst, a sub-sector emerges and
begins to develop. The catalyst could be a new technological advance, or perhaps a
regulatory change, or even a shift in resource costs. The second phase occurs when a new
sub-sector amalgamates as something distinct, and it grows. In the third phase of the
lifecycle, a sub-sector matures: startup creation and early-stage funding slows down, while
exits and Series B+ funding rounds continue to be strong. Finally, the sub-sector enters the
decline phase. Early-stage funding drops with exits eventually following suit. Not every sub-
sector is destined to decline, of course. A new technological development within the sub-
sector may open a new era of growth, just like a new product feature may regenerate a fading
product. But without new developments, the original upstarts become incumbents, and the
disruptors eventually get disrupted.
Growth Sub-Sectors
• Advanced Manufacturing & Robotics

• Agtech & New Food
• Blockchain
• Artificial Intelligence, Big Data & Analytics
These four sub-sectors are experiencing tremendous growth, but the nature of that growth
differs. Advanced Manufacturing, Agtech, and Blockchain are still in the emerging phase of
the lifecycle, and are growing from smaller bases in terms of the number of startups. These
sub-sectors have shares of 0.6 percent to 1.5 percent in all global startups as estimated from
the data. Artificial Intelligence, Big Data & Analytics, meanwhile, is also growing strongly, but
the sub-sector is much bigger and closer to the mature phase, with 5 percent of all global
startups. Digging deeper into this sub-sector, it becomes apparent that AI companies are
driving growth.
Mature Sub-Sectors
• Biotech
• Health and Life Sciences
• Fintech
• Cybersecurity
• Cleantech
• Edtech
Startup Sub-Sectors in the mature phase are relatively large in size and some of the biggest
value creators globally. Because global startup ecosystems are growing worldwide, mature sub-
sectors continue to experience growth. Some geographies (e.g., Edtech in Asia) and segments (e.g.,
crypto- related Fintech) within a sub-sector may be growing faster than the aggregate mature
sub-sector.
Decline Sub-Sectors
• Adtech
• Gaming
• Digital Media
Startup Sub-Sectors in the Decline phase are those that are experiencing negative growth in
Early Stage Funding deals, even though exits may still be increasing. In addition, because
overall venture capital is growing globally and just hit a decade high of over $140 billion
worldwide in 2017, some of these sub-sectors may still have strong investments and exciting
startups, despite the fact that they are underperforming compared to others. Like Mature Sub-
Sectors, Decline Sub- Sectors may be still be growing in certain parts of the world. For
example, Asia has a lot of activity in Adtech despite the slowdown in much of Europe and
North America. Of course, at any time new technologies can renew a sub-sector and take it to
the Growth Phase again. For example, while activity for Adtech is declining, new channels like
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality can infuse new energy and growth. Similarly, specific
segments of these sub-sectors may still be growing.
East vs. West: The Rise of China and Diminishing U.S. Dominance
A major way we see the map of entrepreneurship changing globally with new hubs of excellence
is
the increase of activity in Asia and the decline of U.S. preeminence. The United States and
Silicon Valley are still the top value creators in the global startup ecosystem but their
dominance is not as sharp as it once was. For the past six years, the share of funding going to
Asia-Pacific countries grew, while the U.S. share declined. In 2017, VC funding for startups in
the United States compared to the Asia-Pacific region were even, with each accounting for 42
percent of investment value. The USA is still a bit ahead but China is the primary growth
driver in this shift. In 2014, only 13.9 percent of current unicorns were from China. In 2017
and 2018 so far, that number has grown to 35 percent while for the United States it has
decreased from 61.1 percent to 41.3 percent (GSER, 2018).
Indian Startup Ecosystem: Announcing Its Enormity to the World
According to a report released by Startupblink, a global startup ecosystem map with

tens of thousands of registered startups, coworking spaces, and accelerators, the Indian startup
ecosystem is ranked at number 37 and the global ranking of its top three cities are
Bengaluru, New Delhi, and Mumbai for the year 2018. Interestingly, India ranks below Latin
American countries Mexico (30th) and Chile (33rd). Its neighbours, China (12th), Singapore (10th),
South Korea (17th), and Japan (20th), are in the top 20 list (Menon, 2018). India has managed to
retain its position as the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world with more experienced
professionals taking entrepreneurial route as per the latest study done by NAASCOM in
collaboration with Zinnov (NASSCOM, 2018a). It has also scrolled up three places in 2018 to
position itself in the 57th rank in the Global Innovation Index from 60th position in the previous
year (Pulakkat, 2018). Besides this, India also holds the title for the highest Unicorn holder of
8 ventures right after the US and China (NASSCOM, 2018a). Indian unicorn list is expected to
add 10 more businesses by the end of 2020. India has recorded a jump of 23 positions against
its rank of 100 in 2017 to be placed now at 77th rank among 190 countries assessed by the
World Bank. India’s leap of 23 ranks in the Ease of Doing Business ranking is significant
considering that last year India had improved its rank by 30 places, a rare feat for any large
and diverse country of the size of India (Anonymous, 2018g).
This indicates the flurry of new Startups and innovations that has been going on in India in
recent years. The Indian start-up ecosystem has evolved, being driven by factors such as
growth in number of funds/angels, evolving technology, higher smart phone and social media
penetration, growth in incubators and accelerators and younger demographics. India’s rank
indicates that more has to be done in terms of ease of doing business, startup policies,
and complicated tax compliance. The Indian startup ecosystem is also yet to see major
exits which is seen as important measure to gauge the maturity of a startup ecosystem.
The Ecosystem Analysis
The idea is not to criticize but to introspect and analyze the startup ecosystem of India. India
is way behind in numbers when compared to other leading countries. Moreover, there’s no
system in place to gauge the quality and competency of the startup ventures in India. Young
startups,
perhaps need guidance, direction and exposure more than financial support. While funding is
an important aspect, pro-active government policies and private players have to step in to
create a more sustainable environment for start-ups. But first let us define Startup according to
Government of India (Anonymous, 2019b).
An entity shall be considered as a “ STARTUP” when it fulfills the following criteria as mentioned
below:
Startup Landscape in India
India’s startup ecosystem has become a talking point for the entire world. With hundreds of
innovative youngsters choosing to pursue the path of entrepreneurship instead of joining the
multinational corporations and government ventures, the business world has witnessed an
explosion of ground- breaking startups providing solutions to the real problems at a mass level in
the past years (Pasquier, 2015). While India observed a slowdown in 2017 when only 1,000 tech
startups were added to the system, the nation caught up in 2018 with the inclusion of 1,200
new tech ventures. Adoption of advanced technology in B2B startups and improving support
structures are driving growth in the Indian Tech Startup ecosystem. India, today, proudly stands
as the third largest startup ecosystem in the world after the United Nations and the United
Kingdom with a total of 7,700 tech startups in 2018. According to the Inc42 ‘The State of Indian
Startup Ecosystem 2018’, India currently has more than 49,000+ startups, 1500+ investors, 250+
incubators, and 26 unicorns (NASSCOM, 2018a; Inc42,
2018a; Srivastav, 2018).
Growth drivers for the boom in startup ecosystem
• 8.2 percent YoY growth rate in Q2 of 2018 proving India is world’s fastest growing major
economy.
• Presence of approx. 500 Mn internet users in India for the year 2018 is more than the
population of USA.
• More than 100 percent YoY increase in total startup funding (Jan-Sep) depicting increased
growth stage funding in 2018 especially beyond Series C funding.
Key Trends of Indian Startup Ecosystem
• Indian Tech Startup ecosystem is witnessing 50 percent YoY increase in Advanced Tech
startups in the year 2018. New Startups providing solution with the implementation of
AI/ML, IoT, AR/VR, Blockchain and 3D printing have emerged in last 1-2 years.
• Indian Startups are focusing more on B2B solutions which is evident from the rising
percentage of B2B startups which now share 43 percent of total tech startups in 2018
compared to 40 percent in 2017.
• Digital transformations of every sector encouraged by GoI is driving growth of B2B
startups and solutions.
• There has been tremendous upsurge in growth stage funding in 2018 which has almost
doubled from 2017. The growth in late stage funding has resulted in 8 Indian startups
becoming unicorns in 2018.
• The startup support structures has also showed promising growth in recent years with an
11 percent YoY growth in Incubators/Accelerators. India Startup Ecosystem has also gone
way ahead in establishing 14+International Startup exchange missions, 75 percent out of which
were incepted in last two years from 2016-18 (NASSCOM, 2018a; Inc42, 2018a,
2018b).
Vertical Analysis of Indian Startup Ecosystem Landscape
Enterprise Software, FinTech, Marketplace and HealthTech together comprise of ~50% of total
Tech Startups. It is evident from the chart below that the maximum share of the total Tech
startups in the year 2018 was held by Others sector. Others included Automotive, Travel,
Media & Entertainment, Adtech, Real Estate, gaming, Security, etc. Enterprises are increasingly
looking for digital solutions to their enterprise problems, and Indian start-ups are tapping into
this market. In 2017 and 2018, the no. of FinTech startups incepted have been more than the
no. of Enterprise Software startups.
It is to be noted that the Enterprise Software sector shows a high growth rate pertaining to
growth drivers such as horizontal and vertical SaaS based startups solving enterprise problems.
Government of India push on financial inclusion and innovative tech solutions accelerating the
pace of payments, lending and banking has provide a high growth rate for startups in the
FinTech sector. Marketplace and EdTech startups are experienced a medium growth rate in
2018. But increase in internet penetration in the Indian population (~500 Mn users) has paved
for better infrastructure regarding
digital transactions. While increasing adoption of technology among the young population
usually below 29 years of age is pushing the EdTech sector to come up with innovations
solutions for the end users. Others sector which includes Automotive, Travel, Media &
Entertainment, Adtech, Real Estate, gaming, Security, etc. has also witnessed a growth due to
rapid increase in consumer software, more travel and tourism and increasing demand in the
field of media & entertainment (NASSCOM, 2018a).
Fig. 4: Distribution of Startups in Indian Ecosystem 2018, By Industry (NASSCOM, 2018a)
India’s Performance in Advanced Tech
Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics and IoT are witnessing fastest adoption across Industry
verticals. There has been a 120 percent increase in YoY funding growth for AI Start-ups in
2018 (Over $150 Mn invested). Also an increase of 500 percent YoY ($2 Mn to $11 Mn) growth
was witnessed for Blockchain funding (though on a smaller base).
Fig. 5: Distribution of Startups in Indian Ecosystem 2018, by Advanced Tech (NASSCOM, 2018a)
Advanced Technology startup pool is expanding rapidly at 40 percent CAGR since 2013. The 5
year CAGR analysis revealed that the number of startups in Data Analytics increased by 18-20
percent performing in key sectors such as Enterprise, FinTech and RetailTech. Key sectors such
as Fintech, Enterprise and AgTech witnessed an increase more than 100 percent in startup working
in Blockchain as revealed by 5 year CAGR conducted by Zinnov CoNXT Research & Analysis.
IoT segment showed a growth of 15- percent usually in the Industrial, Home Automation and
HealthTech sectors. While AI showed a growth of 54-58 percent in the Enterprise, FinTech
and HealthTech sector. AR/VR tech showed a growth of 26-28 percent in the EdTech,
RetailTech and Real Estate sector.
Key Locations of Startup Hubs in India
Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai continue to remain primary Tech Startup hubs. These three
constitute for 25 percent, 21 percent and 14 percent presence of all the tech startups in
India. According to GSER, 2018, Bengaluru is traditionally home to the Indian headquarters of
many global technology companies. Driven by its large talent pool, Bengaluru is also the
number one hotspot for Indian entrepreneurs to start and scale their company. Bengaluru thrives
on a high cost efficiency for engineers. However, it’s not cost benefits that capture Bengaluru’s key
competitive advantage, it is its engineering prowess. 94 percent of Bengaluru-based founders have
a technical background, the highest rate in the world. The ecosystem has been maturing, led
by Unicorns like Flipkart, Inmobi and Ola.
Fig. 6: Key Locations of Startup Hubs in India (NASSCOM, 2018a)

Table 4: Key Trends and Growth Drivers of the Tech Startup Hubs
Established Hubs (More than 10% of total Startups in India)
Bengaluru • Home to some of the country’s biggest technology

companies (100+ MNCs), Bengaluru has a ripe pool of
technology talent
• Ranks among top 3 cities globally for launch of tech
startups
• High density of entrepreneurs and investors attracts budding
entrepreneurs
Delhi & • Strong presence of startup incubators/accelerators run by Corpo-
NCR rates, Govt., Educational institutions, and Venture capitalists
• Growth of Gurgaon and Noida as startup hubs has put Delhi
NCR on the startup map of India
Mumbai • Financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India

• Advantage of a huge consumer base
• In a few verticals like FinTech, Media & Entertainment,
FoodTech, and Travel, Mumbai is competing with established
hubs like Ban- galore and Delhi NCR for the top spot
Growing Hubs (More than 2% of total Startups in India)
Hyderabad • T-Hub & RICH (Research & Innovation Circle of Hyderabad)

are playing a crucial role in strengthening Hyderabad’s
position as a startup hub
Chennai • Chennai has evolved as the SaaS hub of the country with
companies like Zoho & Freshworks becoming successful
Pune • Presence of good engineering & management schools
supported by emerging IT infrastructure is driving growth
start-ups in the city
Kolkata • Govt. supported incubators, IIM-C Innovation Park, and Calcutta

Angel’s Network (CAN) are some of the driving forces for
startup growth in the city
Emerging Hubs (Less than 2% of total Startups in India)
Kerala • With government-led initiatives like Kerala Startup Mission,

Kerala Technology innovation Zone, the startup ecosystem in
the city is growing fast
Jaipur • Rajasthan Govt. announced a framework for a Rs. 500 crore

startup fund in 2018, with a special focus on “Women Start-
up” and “Green Startups”
Chandigarh • Presence of many educational institutions, investors, and
good infrastructure is driving the growth of start-ups in
the city
Source: NASSCOM, 2018a; Inc42, 2018a, 2018b
Indian Tech Startup Funding
The Indian tech startups raised about $13.5 Bn in funding across 885 deals in 2017. The
amount invested in 2017 is almost 3 times than what it was in 2016, while the number of
deals reduced by 7.14 percent. However, if we remove the top fundings of 2017 including the
near billion dollar cheques infused in the Indian startups like – Flipkart ($4 Bn across two
rounds), Paytm ($1.4 Bn), Ola ($1.1 Bn) and Phonepe ($500 Mn), the funding amount falls down
to $6.46 Bn which is technically a rise of 38 percent in comparison to the funding raised in
2016.
Fig. 7: YoY Deals and Amount of Indian Startup Funding (Inc42, 2018b), Amount is in Billion dollars
The data presented in Figure clearly reveals that 2017 performed exceptionally well for Indian
Startup funding. With 885 number of deals, Indian Startup Ecosystem was able to raise a
whopping $13.5 Bn in funding. Although when compared to the previous year of 2016, the
number of deals were 953 but the Indian tech startups were only able to raise $4.6 Bn in
funding.
Before we delve further into this, let’s take a quick look at the key highlights from the Indian
Startup Funding in 2017.
• Total Number Of Deals: 885

• Total Funding Raised: $13.5 Bn
• Startup Funded Each Day: 2
• City With Maximum Number of Deals: Bengaluru
• Sector With Maximum Number of Deals: FinTech
• Total Number of Investors Participated: 1078
• Total Number of M&As Reported: 133
• Total Number of New Funds Announced: 34
As per Inc42 Datalabs, since 2014, Indian tech startups have raised over $32.2 Bn across 3,048
deals. Interestingly, out of the total funding, about 42 percent of the funding was raised in
2017 alone. An imperative finding which we got by delving into the startup funding data of the
past four years is that there was a significant dip in the amount per deal (avg. ticket size) in
2015 and 2016, however, in 2017, things came slightly closer to what it was in 2014. While, in
2014, the average amount per deal was $15.8 Mn, it fell to $10.2 Mn and $4.9 Mn in 2015 and
2016 respectively. However, in 2017, the average amount per deal touched $15.2 Mn,
which is still less than 2014 (Inc42, 2018b).
Sector wise Breakdown
In terms of sectors, enterprise tech took the first spot. The segment raised a combined funding of
$531 Mn across 131 deals. The second stage was taken up by the healthtech sector which secured
over 111 deals, a rise of 35 percent in comparison to 2016. The healthtech sector was closely
followed by the Fintech sector – which secured 111 deals in 2017, a 21 percent rise in comparison
to 2016. Surprisingly, hyperlocal and ecommerce took the fourth and fifth spot with 99 and 79
deals respectively. Coming to the top sectors based on the total funding amount being raised,
as expected, ecommerce leads the charts here with over $4.6 Bn being invested, followed by
Fintech which secured $3.01 Bn in total funding. The third spot was taken up by the transport
tech which secured an amount of $1.65 Bn in funding across 37 deals. Followed by the online
travel and enterprise tech which reported a total funding of $796 Mn and $531 Mn
respectively (Inc42, 2018b).
Geography Breakdown
Smoothly perched on the top position, Bengaluru scored 366 deals in 2017 followed by
Delhi/NCR raking up a total of 223 deals. Other major cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad and
Pune took the third, fourth and the fifth rank respectively. Even in terms of the total funding
being raised for startups, Bengaluru tops the chart with an outstanding figure of $7.5 Bn
funding. The second and third spots in the chart were taken up by Delhi with a total
investment of $4.3 Bn and Mumbai with $582 Mn. Besides these top three cities, other major
cities such as Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata are also gearing up and appear to be quite
on track to become good startup hubs for startups in the country. As far as Tier II and Tier III
cities are concerned, the funding for these cities fell down by 46 percent with just 28 deals in
comparison to 2016. However, the average ticket size for these startups showed some good
insights, it stood at $10 Mn in 2017 which is a rise by 1,000 percent (Inc42, 2018b).
Growth of Unicorns in India
India has the highest number of unicorn startups after US and China with 26 unicorns out of
250+ total unicorns globally. 8 Indian start-ups turned Unicorn in 2018 (till Sep.), highest
addition in a single calendar year. The Indian unicorn list is expected to add 10+ members by
2020. Some of the prominent names are Druva, Rivigo, Big Basket, Delhivery, Mobikwik and Practo
(NASSCOM, 2018a; Inc42, 2018a).
A “Unicorn” Startup is a privately held startup company valued at over $1
billion.
Table 5: Growth of unicorn startups in India (2014-18)
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 (E)

Snapdeal PayTM Hike ReNew Power Udaan Druva
YoI: 2010 YoI: 2010 YoI: 2012 YoI: 2011 YoI: 2016 YoI: 2014
Ola Quikr Shopclues Swiggy Big Basket
YoI: 2010 YoI: 2008 YoI: 2011 YoI: 2014 YoI: 2011
Immobi Zomato Delhivery
YoI: 2007 YoI: 2008 YoI: 2009
OYO MobiKwik
YoI: 2013 YoI: 2009
Freshworks Practo
YoI: 2010 YoI: 2008
PayTM Mall BillDesk
YoI: 2010 YoI: 2000
Policy Bazaar Rivigo
YoI: 2008 YoI: 2017
BYJU
YoI: 2008
2018 has been a landmark year for growth of Unicorns in
India Udaan: The Fastest Startup in India to become a Unicorn
B2B e-commerce startup Udaan has just touched a valuation of $1 billion (Rs. 7,000 crore).
Udaan reached the milestone after a fundraise of $225 million from Russian billionaire
Yuri Milner and Lightspeed Global Growth. It had raised $50 million in series B funding in
February 2018. While it got the Series A funding back in November of 2016. Udaan is a web
platform that connects small businesses with wholesalers and manufacturers, traders, and
retailers. It currently has a presence in two categories, mobile accessories and fashion
products, and is looking to expand its portfolio. The company has a seller base in over 80
cities and delivers to more than 500 cities. More remarkably, Udaan is now the fastest Indian
startup to become a unicorn in just 26 months which was only founded in 2016. Udaan was
founded by three high-ranking former Flipkart employees — Sujeet Kumar was the President
of Operations at Flipkart, Amod Malviya was Flipkart’s Chief Technology Officer, and Vaibhav
Gupta had been Flipkart’s SVP of Business and Analytics before they quit to launch Udaan.
Udaan’s business model of providing a B2B ecommerce platform for manufacturers to sell
directly to shop owners and merchants is seeing increasing competition from the likes of
Amazon Business, Metro Cash & Carry, Walmart and Alibaba.
(Source: OfficeChai, 2018; Bansal and Chanchani, 2018

Incubators and Accelerators: Startup Ecosystem Enablers
As India matures to become a start-up hub, Incubators/Accelerators (I/As) play an important

role in this growth by providing mentorship, nurturing ideas, providing technical support,
generating funds and thus, helping acquire new customers. While incubators provide support
across the life cycle, accelerators are more focused on ‘Growth & Acceleration’ stage (NASSCOM,
2017). Incubators and Accelerators are the crucial support centres of the start-up ecosystem.
Incubators are responsible for providing support across a startup’s life cycle, while accelerators
are focused more towards growth and acceleration of the startup. A typical duration for an
Incubator program is 6-36 months while for an Accelerator program it is 3-12 months. The
incubators and accelerators are currently technology- driven, and seem to be industry agnostic.
I/As can be broadly classified into four categories: Corporate, Independent, Academic, and
Government-supported. Corporate and Independent mostly work on accelerator model,
whereas Academic and Government-supported have an incubator-like model (Rao, 2018;
Navani, 2018).
I/As Landscape in Indian Startup Ecosystem: Quick Facts
• As per the data compiled within DIPP, as of November, 2018, India has over 270
incubators and accelerators managed by academic institutes, corporates, private players and
Government. Majority of these incubators are supported by Central and State Governments
through capital and operational grants under several schemes.
• Corporate and Govt. supported Incubators/Accelerators have grown significantly
• Advanced tech. is the emerging focus area with most of the new Incubators/Accelerators
focusing in AI, IoT, AR/VR, etc.
• ~38 percent of Incubators/Accelerators are based out of Tier 2/3 cities
• ~60 percent+ Incubators and Accelerators focusing on deeper technologies
• I/As solving India centric problems-Across sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, education,
and banking
• Bengaluru, NCR, and Mumbai continue to be the leading hubs, with 40 percent+
incubators/ accelerators
• Corporate Accelerators seeing growth of ~35 percent YoY
• In the past 3-5 years, many large multinationals have set up incubator and accelerator
programs. Corporates are seeking the latest in innovation and offering technical expertise
to take Startup solutions to the next level.
• Large corporates have collaborated with Government and academia at T-Hub, Hyderabad.
International and Indian Corporates also run their dedicated incubator and accelerator
programs in India (NASSCOM, 2017).
Table 6: Incubators/Accelerators by Type
Corporate Private Academic Govt. Sponsored

Number of 50+ 50+ 95+ 20+
I/As
Proportions ~80% are ~62% are ~97% are ~82% are
of I/As Accelerators Accelerators Incubators Incubators
Physical • Shared Resources • Dedicated Office Space

Support • Cloud Support • Hi-speed internet
• Developer Tools • Research Labs & Library Access
• APIs
Networking • Investor Connect • Start-up Boot Camps

Support • Customer Showcase Opportunity • Investor Networking & Pitching
• VC Sessions Sessions
• Road shows • eSummits (attended by CEOs,
investors, startup founders)
Mentorship • Business Leader Mentorship • Alumni Mentorship

Support • Corporate Support • Faculty and Industry Advisor Sup-
• CEO Coaching port
• Technical & Leadership Training
Focus Areas • Technology: AI/ML, Big • Technology: Analytics, 3D

Data Analytics, Cloud Printing, IoT, AI/Ml
• Verticals: EdTech, FinTech, • Verticals: Manufacturing,
HealthTech, AdTech, RetailTech HiTech, HealthTech, Energy
• Segments: B2B and B2C • Segments: B2B
Duration 3-12 months 6-36 months

Famous I/As Cisco Govin IIIT, Hyderabad C-CAMP
in segment Esselerator Neoleap IIT, Bombay NSIC
Source: NASSCOM, 2017; NASSCOM, 2018a

Note: List of active Incubators/Accelerators in India is presented in Appendix I and Appendix II
Government Initiatives and Policies to Promote Startup Ecosystem in India
India has been very active in creating a healthy startup ecosystem, and the growth in the
number of startups is increasing year on year. In fact, it is among the top five startup
communities in the world. The Government of India decided to boost the startup ecosystem in
the country and help India become a nation of job creators rather than job seekers. The
Government through various initiatives and policies aims to empower startups to grow through
innovation and design and to accelerate spreading of the startup movement. National start-up
policies have started to show on-ground impact. Multiple enabling policies have been
implemented to support startups, their early take off and successful operations (Startup India,
2019a). Illustrative examples of some policy intervention of the Government of India is shown
below.
Startup India
ATAL INNOVATION MISSION
New Generation Innovation

and Entrepreneurship Development
Centre
MAKE IN INDIA
Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance

Council (BIRAC)
SFAC Venture Capital Assistance
The salient features of important policy interventions are provided in Appendix III
Collaboration with International Giants to Boost Indian Startup Ecosystem
One of the key objectives undertaken by the Government of India through its flagship Startup
India program is to help connect Indian Startup ecosystems to global Startup ecosystems through
various engagement models (Startup India, 2019b). Key international partnerships have been
executed by Startup India and their benefits are described below.
Indo-Israel Innovation Bridge
Israel-India Innovation Bridge is a tech platform to facilitate bilateral co-operation between Indian
and Israeli Startups, tech hubs, corporations and other key innovation ecosystem players. The
Innovation Bridge is housed in the Startup India Portal. During 2017, the partnership resulted
into a bilateral innovation challenge inviting Israeli and Indian Startups to combine forces to
develop solutions for critical problems in the field of agriculture, water and digital health.
Within each of these areas, two problems statements were presented to innovators. 18 Startups
were selected as winners and they received mentorship and incubation support apart from
cash prizes of up to INR 2 - 5 lacs
India Singapore Entrepreneurship Bridge
India Singapore Entrepreneurship Bridge is a digital platform to enable Startups, investors and
aspiring entrepreneurs of both countries to connect with one another with the focus on:
• Knowledge exchange,
• Networking opportunities, and
• Capacity building
The first initiative was the ASEAN

India Grand Challenge to support
ASEAN Startups with a
commercially viable solution to solve
India’s priority sectors through a
market access program in
5 States of India. The themes for
the challenge are as follows:
• IoT for smart cities
• Financial technology & financial inclusion
• Renewable energy
• Agriculture & rural development
• Digital health & Clean India
India Portugal Startup Hub (IPSH)
IPSH will enable Startups, investors,

incubators and aspiring
entrepreneurs of both countries to
connect with one another and provide
them with resources to become
global Startups.
Sweden-India Startup Sambandh Hub
The digital platform focuses on deepening engagement among stakeholders in both

ecosystems. It will provide favorable business environment and necessary guidance to
Startups from both the countries for sustainable growth of their businesses.
Indo-Dutch #StartUpLink
The Indo-Dutch Startup Link will act

as a one stop platform for Startups
from India and Netherlands. The
initiative will
enable Startups, investors, incubators and aspiring entrepreneurs of both countries to connect with
one another, facilitate knowledge exchange, and provide pilot opportunities for Startups.
Startup India Hub and Netherlands Enterprise Agency would act as single points of contact for
their respective countries. The initiative will assist Startups through their lifecycle with
specific focus on aspects like funding, market expansion, feasibility testing, business structuring
advisory, enhancement of marketing skills, and technology commercialization.
Japan India Startup Hub
The Japan India Startup Hub is an

online platform to bridge the gap
between Indian & Japanese startup
ecosystems and enable meaningful
synergies to promote joint
innovation in both
economies. The Hub was conceptualized as part of a joint statement signed between the
Ministry of Economy, Trade, & Industry (Japan) and Ministry of Commerce & Industry (India)
on 1st May 2018. The Hub will enable collaborations between startups, investors, incubators, &
aspiring entrepreneurs of both countries and provide them requisite resources for market
entry & global expansion.
India Korea Startup Hub
The India-Korea Startup Hub is a

one- stop platform to bring the
Indian and Korean start-up
ecosystems closer and to facilitate
joint innovation between the two
economies. The Hub was
conceptualized as part of a joint
statement signed between the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and
Invest India on 9th July 2018. The Hub will enable collaborations between startups, investors,
incubators, & aspiring entrepreneurs of both countries and provide them requisite resources
for market entry & global expansion.
India Tech-Bridge
The India Tech-Bridge will bring together Indian and American entrepreneurs by helping them
seamlessly transition to a US presence. The main focus of the program lies in the go-to-
market
process in the US and providing end to end facilitation for the shortlisted startups. Invest
India along with International Accelerator has entered into a strategic alliance to help Indian
startups and entrepreneurs succeed by connecting them with the best ”in-class incubation
support” in India, followed by a go-to-market acceleration program in the US along with
support from regional industry leaders, mentors as well as accelerators.
AgriTech Startups: Redefining Indian Agriculture through Technology

Solution
In a bid to double the farmer’s income by 2022, the Government of India is continuously
looking for ways to boost agricultural production, food processing and marketing avenues
through the integration of latest technologies and innovations; thus creating a huge scope for
food and agritech startups in the country (Balaji, 2018). India has made a strong name for
itself in the global startup community. India ranks amongst the top five countries in the world
in terms of number of startups founded. It is estimated that India houses around 7200-7700
start-ups, creating more than 85,000 employment opportunities. It is projected that the
number of startups in India will increase to more than 11,500 by 2020, with job creation from
these entrepreneurs reaching 250-300K by 2020 (NASSCOM, 2018a; FICCI 2018).
Agriculture is one of the important pillars of the Indian economy. According to a report from
FICCI, about 54 percent of Indian population depends directly on agriculture and it accounts
for around
17.3 percent of GDP (FICCI, 2018). Although, agriculture in India has majorly seen a
steady growth in the last few years, not much has been done in encouraging young, fresh and
unique innovative ideas in the sector. It was only in 2007, when the era of start-ups saw a
boost and things started to change. Young entrepreneurs are now quitting their jobs in IT
sectors and MNCs to establish their own startups. These young entrepreneurs are now
beginning to realize the fact that investing in agriculture is one of the very few safe and
profitable businesses (MahyCo, 2018). Agriculture is a crucial sector of our economy and the
demand for agricultural products is never expected to reduce.
There is a new wave of budding entrepreneurs and emerging startups in the country that are
leading the way to disrupting the agriculture sector in the country. They want to deploy
technology in this sector and reform it for good. The important questions are- Can technology
really change the sector? And Why do these entrepreneurs and startups want to do this
now?
To answer the first question, several countries like Israel, China and the US have transformed
agriculture practices in their country with the use of technology. These countries have
demonstrated that assortment of technology like hybrid seeds, precision farming, big data
analytics, artificial intelligence, geo-tagging & satellite monitoring, mobile apps and farm
management software can be applied at every stage in agriculture process to increase
productivity and farm incomes (Kola, 2018).
Fig. 8: Agritech startup opportunities in Indian agriculture (Kaalari, 2018)
But to answer the question why enter the Indian agriculture space now—because the sector
holds tremendous potential for technology adoption considering the sheer size of population
involved.
AgriTech is the idea of applying modern technologies to the agricultural sector with a view to
enhance produce, efficiency and revenue. The concept extends to any applications, practices,
products and services that enhance any aspect of the agricultural process, be it an input
function or the output received.
Many agritech startups in India are mainly in marketplace segment where e-commerce
companies provide fresh and organic fruits and vegetables procured directly from farmers.
Very recently many startups have come up providing innovative and sustainable solutions for
farmer’s problems. Startups have provided solutions such as biogas plants, solar powered
cold storage, fencing and water pumping, weather prediction, spraying machines, seed drills,
vertical farming, etc (Sachitanand, 2018).
Agritech has the potential to address a number of challenges faced by the sector and,
subsequently, change the face of the Indian agriculture. Upsurge in the internet usage,
increase in smartphone penetration, emergence of startups and various government initiatives in
rural areas are facilitating technology adoption in the farm sector (Ganguly, 2018). The major
aspects of an agricultural value chain that is affected by technology intervention
requirement are:
Table 7: Scope of technology intervention in agricultural value chain
Value Chain Technology Intervention required

Stage
Inputs / • Getting agriculture inputs directly on phone
Knowledge • Weather forecast through weather apps
• Decision support solution for farmers like selling crops at appropriate
rates
• Pest Management Solution and Nutritional Management Solution
• AI based sowing advisories
Harvesting and • GSM Mobile controlled motor
Transport • Hi tech irrigation systems like drip, sprinkler etc.
• Auto Steering Tractors powered by GPS
• Crop Counting Machines
• Machine-learning algorithms to differentiate between weeds and
crops
Processing and • Machine based Imaging technology to sort based on color, size, type
Storage etc.
• Wireless sensor to monitor crops connected with smartphone
• Measuring grains moisture content
Distribution, • Web and mobile applications to sell directly farm products
Packaging and • Price forecasting model to prevent inflation
Handling • Dynamic product pricing
• Online marketplace for grain
• Using data to track
Source: NASSCOM, 2018a
The technology solutions for most issues in agriculture are present but the challenge is for
these solutions to reach every farmer in a larger scale and not just only one farmer.
Status and Sectoral Presence of Agritech Startups in India
Agritech startups globally are prevalent in agricultural biotechnology, online farm-to-consumer,

farm management software, sensing and IoT, robotics, mechanisation equipment, novel farming
systems, food safety, and traceability, etc. In 2016, the global agritech investment figure was 3.23
billion USD. India continued to be among the top six countries globally, with the highest
number of deals in agricultural technology. In 2016, within global investments, Indian agritech
startup firms contributed around 9 percent, valued at 313 million USD which was raised by 53
startups. By 2017, this had increased to $10.1 billion for agri food-tech startups, spanning
across 994 deals from 1,487 unique investors, clocking 29 per cent YoY growth. Of this, $2.6
billion went into agritech alone. Nationally, the focus of agritech startups hovers around the
following key sub-sectors:
Table 8: Key areas for startups in agricultural activities
Sub-Sectors Key areas for startups

Supply Chain • E-Distributor
• Listing Platform
• Marketplace
Infrastructure • Growing Systems & Components

• Aquaponics
• Hydroponics
• Drip Irrigation
Finance • Payments
• Revenue Sharing
• Lending
Farm Data and Ana- • Integrated Platform

lytics • Remote Sensing
• Software Platforms
• Farm Mapping
• Farm Management Solution
• Field Operations
Information Platform • Information Dissemination
Source: FICCI, 2018
Startup Scenario in India
With 350+ Agritech startups in India, many startups are now targeting for breakeven point as
the investors show continuous interest for further rounds of funding. According to NASSCOM, more
than half (59%) of the investor funding rounds that took place from 2013-17 was focused on
startups in
seed stage. It was followed by
early stage which occupied 32
percent of the investor funding
rounds. A small percentage of
9 percent of the funding rounds
was covered by the startups in
the growth stage. It was
concluded that more than 90
percent of funding was focused
Fig. 9: Distribution of Agritech startups according to investor
on seed stage and early stage
funding rounds (NASSCOM, 2018ab) *Seed Stage <$1 Mn,
startups which increases focus Early Stage $1-5 Mn, Growth Stage $5-20 Mn
on quality and scale up.
Increasing Number of Agritech Startups
A wave of agritech startups in India has come in up last few years to address the problems of
Indian agriculture such as supply chain management, use of outdated equipment, improper
infrastructure, and farmers unable to access a wider range of markets with ease and enhancing the
sector’s marketing infrastructure has been developed in India which tackles this issue and has
the potential to change the face of Indian agriculture sector and eventually raise farmers’
incomes.
Fig. 10: Number of Agritech Startups (2013-17), Source: Traxcn Data; NASSCOM, 2018b.
A total of 366 agri-based startups have come up from 2013 to 2017. The perusal of data
presented in the Figure revealed that the year 2015 saw the maximum number of startups
(117 Nos.) getting started. It was followed by 2016 which also presented a good number of
startups (109 Nos.) getting started to answer the concerns associated with Indian agriculture. It
is to be noted that more than 50 percent of the startups in the last 5 years got started in
year 2015 and 2016.
Key Indian States Focusing on Agritech Startups

Looking at the geographical distribution, Karnataka and Maharashtra together account for
almost 50 percent of the total agritech start-ups opened in the past 5 years. As we have
learned earlier from
the analysis of Indian Startup Ecosystem Bengaluru (Karnataka) is one of the established
startup ecosystem hub in India along with Mumbai and Delhi & NCR.
Fig. 11: Key Indian States Focusing on Agritech Startups (NASSCOM, 2018b)
Same trends can be noticed in the area of agritech startups where the three established
ecosystem hubs are leading the charts with more than 50 percent of startups established in
India. The major three states are followed by Haryana (8%), Tamil Nadu (7%) and Gujarat
(7%). It is interesting to note that although Gujarat has only 7 percent of share in agritech
startups, it is the “best performing state” in Indian startup ecosystem according to State Startup
Ranking Report 2018 published by The Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP),
Ministry of Commerce, GoI.
The Agritech Startup Ecosystem in India
Institutional Ecosystem for Agritech Startups: Incubators/Accelerators
Enables such as Incubators/Accelerators are also important partners in the overall Startup
ecosystem which supports and accelerates successful development of businesses. It provides
array of business services, technology and infrastructure support including office space, mentoring
and funding (equity or debt) through grants or investor networking opportunities. Accelerators,
incubators and mentors identified for the agritech startup ecosystem, along with the
pronounced policy and schemes, need to work in tandem with the start-ups to provide the
best technical support and reduce their gestation period. Apart from the existing knowledge,
digital and financial gaps in the target segment (i.e. farmers), agritech startups are also marred
related to people, process and technology. Some successful examples of Incubators/
Accelerators in the agritech chain in India are depicted below. Also a comprehensive list of
Incubators/Accelerators present in Indian Startup Ecosystem is provided in Appendix I and II.
Table 9: Some of the key Accelerators and Incubators for agritech sector in India
AGRI UDAAN is India’s 1st Food & Agribusiness accelerator organised

by NAARM, a-IDEA and IIM-A, CIIE in partnership with Caspian
AGRI UDAAN Impact Investment and supported by DST. The program focuses
on catalyzing
scale-up stage Food & Agribusiness startups through rigorous
mentoring, industry networking and Investor pitching. The impact of
AGRI UDAAN includes that 200 agribusiness startups have applied for
the accelerator program, 40 startups mentored, end to end capacity for
8 startups in their value chain and 3 out of 8 startups mentored
received a total of funding worth ~2.5 Cr INR. Focus Areas includes:
Sustainable Inputs, Precision/ Smart Agriculture, Innovative Food
Technology, Supply Chain Technology etc. Some shortlisted incubatees
from this cohort are Gen Agritech; Delmos Research Pvt Ltd; Agricx;
Intello Labs; Smoodies; Jivabhumi; Yukti Harvest; RF Wave technologies;
Odaku; Growyi, etc.
CIIE is a collective of interventions in the space of innovation-driven
entrepreneurship in India. It has its genesis at the Centre for Innovation
Incubation and Entrepreneurship (“Centre”), IIM Ahmedabad - an academic
Centre for center focused on research in innovation and entrepreneurship. CIIE
Innovation continues to support the research and learning undertaken by the
Incubation and
Centre. The impact of CIIE includes 500 ventures trained, incubate or
Entrepreneurship
accelerated, 3000 jobs generated, 100 startups seed funded and
(CIIE)
many more. It has launched a food and agri-business accelerator in
partnership with a-IDEA
- the business incubator at National Academy of Agricultural Research
Management (NAARM).
a-IDEA (Association for Innovation Development of Entrepreneurship in
Agriculture), is a Technology Business Incubator (TBI) hosted by ICAR-
National Academy of Agricultural Research Management, Hyderabad (ICAR-
a-IDEA NAARM) & Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India (DST,
(Association GOI). a-IDEA has been housed in the Centre for Agri-Innovation at ICAR-
for Innovation
NAARM for fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture in
Development of
India. a-IDEA aims to help entrepreneurs ideate, incubate and accelerate
Entrepreneurship
in Agriculture) their innovative early stage startups that are scalable to become
competitive food and agribusiness ventures through capacity building,
mentoring , networking and advisory support.
In December 2002, the International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a non-profit organization, joined forces with
the Department of Science & Technology (DST), an Indian
International government agency, to develop an agribusiness incubator (ABI) at
Crops Research ICRISAT. The incubator is supported by DST’s National Science
Institute for
and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, which promotes
the Semi-Arid
the development and commercialization of indigenous technologies by
Tropics (ICRISAT)
providing financial
assistance through public-private partnerships. ICRISAT launched Innovation
Hub (iHub) to support agricultural tech entrepreneurs, scientists and
technology experts can collaborate to innovate cutting edge ideas across the
whole agriculture value chain
The T-Hub is a unique public-private partnership between the
government of Telangana, three academic institutes-IIIT-H, ISB and
National Law University, Nalsar and key private sector leaders. These
entities have come together with a clear vision to create an innovation
ecosystem centered around Hyderabad, leveraging the City’s traditional
T-Hub strengths in technology, education and entrepreneurship, as well as its
position as a preferred destination for multiple national and international
businesses across sectors. T-Hub is designed to support technology-
related start-ups, and its mission is to catalyse the creation of one of
the tightest and most vibrant entrepreneur communities in the world in
order to encourage and fuel more start-up success stories in India.
IIIT-Hyderabad and National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management

(MANAGE) have signed an MOU to start an Agri tech startup accelerator
Agri-Tech Start- programme. The Agri Tech Startup Accelerator Programme will identify,
up Accelerator support and facilitate idea-stage enterprises using latest technologies
CIE, Hyderabad and innovations to solve agriculture specific issues faced in India.
Source: NASSCOM, 2018b; FICCI, 2018
Enabling Government Policies
In India, Central and State governments are playing an active role in Startup ecosystem
development. The key objectives of the Government are as follows:
• Spur entrepreneurial activity to accelerate job creation
• Create enabling environment by reducing regulatory burden and introducing new policies
• Build capacity through infrastructure creation and training
• Provide funding support and fiscal incentives
• Facilitate all members of the Startup ecosystem to collaborate and connect
With increased allocations and measures announced towards agriculture sector, rural
infrastructure in the Union Budget 2018 was one of the most appropriate ways to provide
support to agritech startups working in the area. The continued focus on agricultural sector
reform is appreciated, especially the government’s effort to integrate rural haats to the eNam and
increasing the purview of MSP for comprehensive coverage of agri commodities. The farmers
can look forward to better price realization now. Thus, agritech startups that are already
working on enabling better farm produce prices for farmers will get greater scope of working
with the government to achieve the common goal. Secondly, by doubling the allocation for
food processing, the government will further give a thrust to the food processing supply chain
and the agritech startups involved in it. Regulations and archaic rules impede the growth of
Startups (Goyal, 2018). Government through its ease of doing business initiatives and business
friendly policies is creating a conducive regulatory framework for Startups. Recently in October
2018, Indian made a staggering a record 53 rank jump in just two years to reach 77th position
in the doing business ranking from World Bank. A comprehensive list of government policies
supporting the growth of agritech startups is presented in Appendix.
Agriclinics and Agribusiness Centres: Better Farming by Every Farmer
The Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, in association with

NABARD and MANAGE has launched this unique scheme to take better
methods of farming to each and every farmer across the country. This
programme aims to tap the expertise available in the large pool of
Agriculture Graduates. Irrespective of whether a person is fresh
graduate or not, or whether he/ she is currently employed or not, they
can set up their own AgriClinic or AgriBusiness Centre and offer
professional extension services to innumerable
farmers. Committed to this programme, the Government is now also providing startup training
to graduates in Agriculture, or any subject allied to Agriculture like Horticulture, Sericulture,
Veterinary Sciences, Forestry, Dairy, Poultry farming, and Fisheries, etc. Those completing the
training can apply for special start-up loans for venture (ACABC, 2019).
MANAGE AC & ABC Incubation Centre: Taking Farming to Next Level
MANAGE Agri Clinics & Agri Business Centre is situated at National

Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Hyderabad.
MANAGE has trained nearly 53,544 professionals, of which, approximately
23,246 started their own enterprises through its ACABC scheme
(http://www.agriclinics. net/). To fast-track growth in these, the
institute is taking it to next level
by providing them incubation support though the in-house incubation center. MANAGE intends
to nurture all interested potential agripreneurs to setup their own enterprise or startups
(MANAGE, 2019).
VISION MISSION
nce the agri-entrepreneurial ecosystem by strengtheningTo
theprovide
agro- advisory
incubation
services
and business support services to agri-entrepreneurs
To build up the network of partners an associates to support agri-entrepreneurs
Focus Area of MANAGE Incubation Centre
The MANAGE Incubation Centre focuses development of startups in following major areas:
• Agri Input
• ICT in Agriculture
• Animal Husbandry
• Nutrition and Health
• Farmer Service Centre
• Post-Harvest Technology
• Farm Mechanization
• Supply Chain Management
• Fishery
• Warehouse Management
Benefaction of MANAGE Incubation Programme
• Infrastructure
• Capacity Building
• Technical Monitoring
• Business Monitoring
• Regulatory and Advisory Services
• IPR Facilitation
• Networking
• Funding
Startups Incubated at
MANAGE Incubation Centre
For more details regarding the MANAGE Incubation

Centre please visit http://www.manage.gov.in/
incubation/incubation.asp or refer to different
Incubation Programme Brochure. MANAGE’s
Incubation Centre has also released a publication
titled “100 Startups by Agripreneurs” which
contains an exhaustive list of 100 startups started by
agripreneurs under the Agri-Clinics and Agri-
Business Centres (AC&ABC) Scheme.
(http://www.manage.gov.in/incubation/ (http://www.manage.gov.in/incubation/
incubation.pdf)
impulse.pdf)
(http://www.manage.gov.in/incubation/ (http://www.manage.gov.in/misc/agri-
krishivikas.pdf) startup.pdf)
Agriculture Grand Challenge
In order to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture, a Grand Challenge was

launched. The objective of Agriculture Grand Challenge was to create opportunity for Agritech
startups with a commercially viable solution to solve for innovative challenges in Agriculture
and to support the technology base by funding and mentoring the best fundamental concepts,
while helping talented and creative innovators to pursue promising avenues at the frontier of
technology. Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India is looking for new concepts & innovations in
12 different areas. The challenge would provide startups with access to priority
infrastructure, and make Agriculture an attractive sector for the country’s best brains
(Startup India, 2019).
How can agri startups benefit?
A joint initiative by Ministry of Agriculture and Startup India Hub, the programme is designed
for budding agri entrepreneurs as well as existing agri startup founders. Early-stage startups can
apply for the idea stage whereas others can apply for ready-market stage. Twelve startups from
each of the early stage, and ready-market stages (24 in total) would be selected to address
the 12 themes (key problems) at the programme.
The idea-stage startups will get three-month incubation support to go from idea to prototype,
with hand-holding from experts of agriculture sector and real-time testing of proof of concept.
The ready- market solutions will get to be part of a three-month market access programme
aimed at easy adoption of their innovation, mentoring by domain experts, and easy access to
agriculture market. Apart from the 24 startups that are selected for the programme, the
remaining participants will get to be part of a series of agri-masterclasses. These would be
organised across the country to provide networking and mentoring opportunity to agritech
startups.
The 12 themes for the challenge
The initiative is looking for new concepts and innovations in the areas of simplified soil
testing methods; assaying and grading solution; development of e-marketplace; price
forecasting during sowing; last-mile information dissemination; yield estimation; sorting and
grading of produce; adulteration testing; custom hiring centres; crop residue disposal;
prevention of pre-harvest and post-harvest losses; and enhancing agricultural productivity.
Timeline of the Challenge
The challenge was hosted at Startup India Hub and the last date to apply is February 28,
2018. The programme amassed interest from over 500 startups and the Startup India team
highlighted that they plan to roll out more such programmes and provide a business-to-
government platform to nurture the startup ecosystem in India.
Results of the Challenge
Theme Winning Startups

Assaying & Grading Aspire Business Solutions
AgriCx Private Limited
Farm to Fork Rajiv Bhatia “Bachat”
Wooly Farms
Last Mile Dissemination Vasudhaika Software Pvt. Ltd.
Roshni Agri Information System
Soil Testing Knoxia technologies Pvt. Ltd.
A Soumya Rao “Colometric Based
Device”
Sorting & Grading Coolcrop
S4S Technologies
Substitutes for Pesticides ATGC Biotech Pvt. Ltd.
Trithi Robotics
Testing Adulteration SANSAAVI Bioresearch Pvt. Ltd.
Micro Life Innovations
Yield Estimation Satsure Analytics Pvt.
Ltd. BKC Aggregators
Custom Hiring Centre Greenday – Kisan Ki Dukan
Pradwan technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Price Forecast Tejaswini M “AgriApp”
Randomtrees
Rationale of Study
New trends are shaping India into a more holistic Tech Startup ecosystem. It is now getting
increasingly clear that India’s startup ecosystem has become vibrant and mainstream in many
ways – in terms of job creation, in terms of solving consumer problems, and in terms of
creating products for the rest of the world. Global investors are realizing this and have made
a beeline for India. The increasing ease of doing business is also bringing in investors in some
much-needed but neglected areas. The wheels of the government machinery too have begun
cranking. The government is acting with speed and a sense of urgency. Following the launch of
the Startup India programme, state governments too began formulating startup policies.
Several states had a startup policy even before the Union government announced the
initiative. With one of the largest populations and consumer bases in the world, India has
enough potential to be both producer and consumer, which means that Indian startups have a
wide range of consumer classes, products and services, and business models to choose from.
This being said it is now clear that India has become the 3rd largest startup hub in the world.
But still the majority of India’s population is directly or indirectly involved in agriculture sector. The
sector with majority population under it but contributing the least to GDP of the country. This
is one of the riskiest sectors to be employed in because it is dependent on uncontrollable
factors like weather, market fluctuations and topographical conditions. Efforts are being made to
give this sector and its workers a much-needed boost. And the biggest way of doing this is
through advancements in agriculture technology which is promoted by these upcoming
startups. There is a need to analyse the roles of these startups in changing the face of Indian
Agriculture and how they are uplifting the farmers’ livelihood. So, to answer these questions a
research problem entitled “Agritech Startups: The Ray of Hope in Indian Agriculture” was
undertaken with the following objectives:
1. To identify prevalent agritech sub-sectors in Indian Startup Ecosystem.

2. To conduct case studies of selected agritech startups in the cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
3. To examine the startup policy changes and implementation by central and state government.
Research Methodology
A carefully planned and well documented methodology acts as a torch in hands of the
researcher to carry forward the investigation process. After thoroughly studying the available
literature, the suitable research methods and appropriate tools were selected to conduct this
study. The purpose of this section is to describe the research methods and techniques used in
conducting this research
.
Locale of the Study
The study was conducted in the two cities of Bengaluru, Karnataka and Hyderabad, Telangana. The
selection of the two cities was done on the basis that the former comes under the
category of established startup ecosystem hub while the latter is one of the fastest growing
startup ecosystem hub in India. The presence of a strong community of engineers with global
work experience, savvy customers and growing pools of early-stage capital in Bengaluru,
have transformed the city into a global startup hub. Bangalore has heaps of highly trained
professionals in data analytics, social media and digital security, something the world leaders
recognize. Home to some of the country’s biggest technology companies (100+ MNCs),
Bengaluru has a ripe pool of technology talent and ranks among top 3 cities globally for
launch of tech startups. Bengaluru is also the number one hotspot for Indian entrepreneurs to
start and scale their company. Bengaluru thrives on a high cost efficiency for engineers. For
instance, salaries are about 13 times cheaper than in the Bay Area and 4 times cheaper than the
average salary across Asia-Pacific. However, it’s not cost benefits that capture Bengaluru’s
key competitive advantage, it’s its engineering prowess. 94 percent of Bengaluru-based
founders have a technical background, the highest rate in the world. While Hyderabad, the
once-wealthy and princely city of Nizams also known as the “City of Pearls” for its diamond
and pearl trade, is now gearing up to become India’s top startup hub. Hyderabad has a
growing network of investors who are now open to investing in startups. The city also has the
right kind of support system with a growing number of accelerators, incubators, and
coworking spaces to nurture young startups. The Telangana Government has invested $6 Mn
in building the biggest incubator facility in the country, T-Hub. Experienced professionals and
executives from Hyderabad are playing the role of mentors, guiding and advising at T-Hub.
T-Hub & RICH (Research & Innovation Circle of Hyderabad) are playing a crucial role in
strengthening Hyderabad’s position as a startup hub. Hyderabad is also host to many startup
events like Startup Saturday, August Fest, Devthon, TiE which provides a platform, all of
which are very crucial to young startups. In all, Hyderabad has positioned itself as one of the
top hubs for entrepreneurs, and, as a result, startups in the city have started to boom.
Selection of Respondents
As this study only focused on agritech startups in India, a list of Agritech sub-sectors was
prepared by using secondary data. The next step involved identification of various startups in
the field of Agritech in India and their categorisation according to the identified agritech sub-
sectors. The
startups were then selected randomly for this study. The selection was ensured in such a way
that majority of startups present in both the cities were undertaken for the study. Thus, a
sample size of 20 startups using simple random sampling were selected for this study.
Research Design
Descriptive research is used to describe characteristics of a population or phenomenon being

studied. It addresses the questions ‘what’ and ‘how’ but cannot describe why a situation
is caused. Descriptive research generally precedes explanatory research i.e. findings of a
descriptive research leads to explanation of many situations and predictions, and before
writing descriptive research survey, an investigation is conducted. In this study, non-
experimental research design (descriptive research), one which describes, records, analyses
and interprets the conditions that exist were adopted to discover the relationship between
existing variables without manipulating the condition.
Data Collection
In this study, semi-structured interview schedule with closed-ended and open-ended questions was
used for data collection. Secondary data was obtained to explore various agritech sub-
sectors in which these startups are working. It helped to provide a basic background of
information about the startups. The primary data was collected by conducting face to face
interview with the founders of the startups. Focus group discussions and observation method
were also carried out for data collection.
Results and Discussion
This section deals with the results of the study which emerged after the analysis and
interpretation of data. For better comprehension of the results, these have been
presented under different sections. Each section gives a detailed account of the results of the
study and presents an analytical view of these results by discussing their various dimensions
and giving relevant references at the appropriate places in agreement or disagreement of the
results. Keeping in view the objectives of the study, results and discussion have been
presented under the following heads:
1. Identification of prevalent Agritech sub-sectors in Indian Startup

Ecosystem
Developments in the agricultural arena have always been upgrades on existing practices:
better machinery, better-yield seeds, and better irrigation systems. Development, so far, has been
positive but confined within the existing definitions of possibility. But now, here we are:
making the old and mundane new and exciting. The introduction of agritech as not only a
concept but initiatives by different administrations and institutions spells new possibilities
for the farming industry, making it a viable sector for future generations to explore. Indian
entrepreneurs and startups have decided to follow in the footsteps of their international
counterparts and apply modern technologies to improve the farming experience in India. Both
the need for and the potential of Agritech in India are defined by the large size and
population of the country.
Over the last decade, the sector is being streamed with the stream of educated youth, fired
by the ideas, passion and innovations to launch newer kinds of technology and business
models to lift the face of agriculture from primitive to hi-tech one. Startups are providing
missing links in the agri value chain and delivering efficient products, technologies and
services to the farmers on one hand and the consumers on the other hand. From ICT apps to
farm automation and from weather forecasting to drone use and from inputs retailing and
equipment renting to online vegetable marketing, and from smart poultry and dairy
ventures to smart agriculture and from protected cultivation to innovative food processing
and packaging, its proliferation of all innovations and technology driven powerful startups
set to revolutionize the food and agriculture sector.
The opportunities lie in areas like how to increase crop production, improving the nutritional
value of the crops, reduction in input prices for farmers, improving the overall process-driven
supply chain, reducing wastage in the distribution system, making easy farm mechanisation
available, and enabling last mile connectivity of farmers with the non-farming population by
interlinking the consumer and producer.
Agritech startups are also leveraging technology in the area of market linkages such as retail,
B2C and B2B marketplaces and digital agronomy platforms. Agritech startups are now able to
address input challenges of agriculture in India from the very beginning. They are able to
provide correct
information, techniques, and efficiencies to farmers both for pre-harvest applications and post-
harvest use cases.
Impact investors are paying close attention to Agritech because of its enormous potential to
transform farmers’ lives. When funds are thinking about their strategic focus, they need to
first consider all Agritech sub-sectors which are as follows:
Big Data based Agritech Startups
Big data analytics is making a huge technological impact in the startup community to create
a repeatable and scalable business model. Big Data based startups are a newly emerged
technology that aims to develop a viable business model to meet a marketplace need or
problem. Development of farm-specific, data-driven diagnostics to determine soil and crop
health has come up as a big opportunity area. There are also a growing number of big
data technologies aimed at improving the efficiency of farming and in supply chain such as
drones, sensors, and other IoT technology, and data analytics to provide decision support to
farmers and other players in the supply chain. CropIn, AgRisk, AgNext, Skymet, Stellaps, and
Airwood are some of the examples that are working on this theme.
Startups based on Supply Chain Model/Market Linkage Model
Innovations must be included to help farmers with timely and accurate estimation of sowing
and harvesting in sync with consumer demand patterns. Such linkages operate at the two
critical ends of the supply chain: input and output models. These models aim to link
producers to remunerative sourcing agencies for procurement and to profitable buyers for
output sales. Indian agriculture is supply driven and less market-driven compared to other
markets. This is the primary reason for seasonal food inflation as well as significant food
waste and value loss along the supply chain. Though demand is becoming more predictable in
India given the homogenization of consumption trends, supply is less predictable.
This presents an opportunity for developing supply chain/market linkage models for farmers.
This in turn could require innovations to help farmers with the timely and accurate estimation
of sowing and harvesting in the context of patterns in consumer demand. Sabziwala,
MeraKisan, Dehaat are some of the startups who have demonstrated successful aggregation
in horticulture. There is need to optimize these supply chains for effective solutions that can
preserve the quality, reduce waste, improve traceability, and improve shelf-life efficient
aggregation, transportation and storage, etc.
The Supply chain model/market linkage model can be further divided into two sub models:
• Upstream (Input) Marketplace model: It matches agri input sellers to farmers upwards in
the agricultural value chain. Bighart, AgroHub, Crofarm are some of the startups in this
category.
• Downstream (Output) ‘Farm-to-Fork’ supply chain model: Matching farmers to businesses
or retail customers for fresh produce, processed food. Ninjacart, Bharat Bazaar are some
of the names in this category.
Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS) based Startups
Specific farm practices are being identified for provision of technological breakthrough
services. Activities such as equipment renting and crop care practices are areas likely to see
market traction. FaaS seeks to provide affordable technology solutions for efficient farming. It
converts fixed costs into variable costs for farmers, thus making the techniques more
affordable for a majority of small farmers. Its services are available on a subscription or pay-
per-use basis in three broad categories, which are crucial across the agriculture value chain.
“Farming as a service (FaaS)” was introduced to India by a company called EM3 Agri Services,
which offers farming services and machinery rentals to farmers on a pay-for-use basis. The
concept has caught on and there are other agriculture equipment leasing and farm
services startups in the space including Goldfarm, Ravgo, Oxen Farm Solutions, and
FarMart.
IoT Enabled Agritech Startups
Smart farming, including high-precision crop control, data collection, and automated farming
techniques, will remove inefficiencies and bolster productivity. Information on crop yields, rainfall
patterns, pest infestation and soil nutrition can be used to improve farming techniques over
time. Low capex for predominantly software based solutions is the key feature for such
solutions. Fasal, Fly Bird Innovations are some of the name in this category.
Engineering-led Innovation Startups
Although India is the largest manufacturer of tractors globally, less than 2 percent of the
country’s farmers use machines. Labour shortage is a reality in rural India and farmers bear
the brunt of it. Agritech startups in this category provide cost-effective and smart mechanisation
solutions to small and marginal farmers to counter lack of good technology and increasing
labour costs. Kamal Kisan, Kheyti, Drip Tech are some of the startups in this category.
Miscellaneous Agritech Startups (Innovation in Agri Products, Dairy Farming, etc.)
Startups based under this category are providing innovative and unique solutions in
developing agro-based products, better dairy, poultry or fish farming methods, providing
advisory services, creating one stop solutions for farmers involved in secondary agriculture,
etc. Suma Agro, La Veda, Cattle Mettle, Happy Farmer Labs are some of the successful
startups in this category.
Broad categorisation of agri startups based on solutions offered in the value chain:
BIG DATA Using farm data to determine opportunities and key areas
• Farm management solution
• Risk mitigation and forecasting solution
• CRM and input channel solution
• Traceability and compliance
SUPPLY CHAIN/ Helping farmers to keep abreast with the market prices and scenario
MARKET LINKAGE • Agri inputs market platforms
• Real-time solution for farmers
• Updated agriculture information
• Quality, availability and price checks
• Farm to fork supply chain
FAAS Providing affordable technology solutions for efficient farming

• On-demand harvesting
• Digital payments
• Market pricing
• Enabling technology to reach farmers
• Agricultural machinery platform
IOT Using IOT devices for remote monitoring, tracking

• Vertical farming monitoring solutions
• Hydroponic farming ecosystem to monitor humidity, air
temperature, etc.
• Aeroponics system
ENGINNERRING-LED Using engineering methods to provide low-cost farming solutions

INNOVATION • Cost effective availability of machinery
• Technology solutions for small farmers
MISCELLANEOUS Using innovative solutions to increase farmers’ income

• Increasing agro-based products industry
• Boosting secondary agriculture
2.Selective Case Studies
After data collection, the primary and secondary data were analysed concurrently. A case
study narrative was constructed to present an in-depth explanation about the startups. The
startups are described on various aspects such as year founded in, who are the founders,
where it is situated, what are the products of the startup, technology used, mode of action,
active regions, funding, impact, etc.
CropIn Technology Solutions
Founded In 2010
Founders Krishna Kumar, Kunal Prasad and Chittaranjan Jena
Headquarters Bengaluru, Karnataka
Product Name Smartfarm, Smartrisk, mwarehouse, Smartsales, AcreSquare, SaaS
Technology Used Big Data Analytics, AI, ML, Remote Sensing
Objective To make every farm traceable and maximizing per acre
value
Startup Description
The agritech startup provides farm businesses a farm management software and mobile app, which
enables them to do connected and data-driven farming. The startup has developed and put on
offer a low cost pay-as-you-use product on an IT platform on Cloud integrated with Android
based smart mobile app. The company harnesses cutting-edge technologies – Big Data analytics,
Machine Learning, Geo-tagging & Satellite monitoring to revolutionize the agri-ecosystem.
CropIn’s SaaS- based system is not a one-time intervention but a sustainable solution. The
intuitive, intelligent, ever-evolving and self-learning system takes in information from various
sources like weather, satellite and ground data and delivers targeted solutions to the
agribusinesses.
With a robust range of products, CropIn largely works on a B2B business model, catering
to agricultural businesses at different levels of the agri-ecosystem. The product portfolio
includes:
• SmartFarm: An award winning robust & flexible farm management solution which enables
complete digitization of farms, empowers data-driven decision-making, and provides complete
visibility of people, processes and performance on the field. It ensures management
of standard package of practices, adherence to compliance and certification, pest and crop
health management.
• SmartRisk: An agri-business intelligence solution that leverages agri-alternate data and

provides risk mitigation and forecasting for effective credit risk assessment and loan
recovery assistance. Proprietary machine learning algorithm built on satellite and weather data
is used to give insights at plot and region level.
• Mwarehouse: A Comprehensive solution for pack house, processing & export companies
that enables Farm to fork traceability & compliance, quality control and flexible inventory
management.
• SmartSales: A comprehensive CRM & input channel management solution, that helps
predict and improve sales and ensures end-to end performance management of sales
team
• AcreSquare: A unique farmer application that helps companies interact directly with their
farmers, share content, educate them and provide consultation, thus enabling companies
to extend the power of technology for their farmers and build farmer loyalty.
Mode of Action
Active Regions 29 countries, 265 Crops, 3500+ Crop varieties

Funding $8 Mn (Series B) by Chiratae Ventures & Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation
Impact 185+ clients, 3.1Mn acres land digitized, benefitting 2.1Mn
farmers
globally
Website www.cropin.com
Ninjacart
Founded In 2015
Founders Ashok Prakash, Ashutosh Vikram, Kartheeswaran K, Sharath
Loganathan, Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Vasu Devan
Product Name Ninjacart Mobile App
Technology Used B2B e-Commerce platform, Mobile platform
Objective To provide more income to farmers and less price to retailers
by
creating an efficient supply chain
Startup Description
Ninjacart is a B2B agri-marketing platform that connects farmers to businesses. Ninjacart is
India’s Largest agri marketing platform, solving one of the toughest supply chain problems
through technology. It connects vegetables and fruits farmers directly with businesses. At
one end, Ninjacart helps farmers get better prices and deal with consistent demand and on
another end, It helps retailers to source fresh vegetables at competitive prices directly from
farmers. Ninjacart does this effectively at lower cost, better speed and larger scale using
integrated supply chain powered by technology, data science, infrastructure and logistics
network. The Ninjacart supply chain operation involves the following major stages:
Forecasting, Pricing, Farmer Harvesting, Collection Centers, Fulfillment Centre,
Distribution Centers, Delivery to Retailers.
Mode of Action
How it Works
Ninjacart supply chain process starts with weekly forecasting, where the sales team
publishes the customer growth plans for the week. Analytics combine growth plan with
historic demand data and market conditions to prepare the weekly sales and procurement
forecast at SKU (Stock- keeping Unit) level. The founders mention that the forecasting
stage is a very crucial stage for them as it helps them in purchase planning to reduce
wastage and it also helps in planning the supply chain in much more efficient way. Once the
forecast is done, the next step involves the
procurement team which goes on to give weekly indent to the farmers based on the existing
farmer harvest calendar. Two days before the actual delivery date based on the existing
market condition such as availability and price fluctuations, the procurement forecast gets
revised once again. After it’s revised, the procurement team again goes on to re-issue indent
to the farmers to re-confirm it once again. The next step involves setting prices where
product prices are collected from various markets, a day before the delivery date. This
price information is then used to set the purchase and selling price simultaneously to
avoid price risks. Based on the indent, the farmer harvest the produce, grades as per
Ninjacart quality standards and brings it to the nearby collection centers. Once the product
arrive at collection centers, the items are checked for quality, then weighed and transferred to
Ninjacart crates in front of the farmer to ensure transparency. The farmer gets a receipt
immediately and the money is transferred to his bank account in 24 hours. The items are
then batched and loaded into truck enabled with real time tracking. Items from multiple
collection center arrive at fulfillment centers and are moved into inventory. Items are
batched according to distribution center wise and as per the customer demand using
Ninjacart’s in-house “queuing technology” and this ensures huge volumes are processed
without any error. Items are picked and packed as per customer orders. Mini trucks arrive
at distribution centers early morning and items are loaded route wise into the vehicle.
Mobile phones are issued to drivers to manage the deliveries. On the way back, the driver
collects empty crates and cash from the customers and deposit the same to the distribution
centers and thus completing the supply chain. With the new funding, Ninjacart aims to
expand to more than 10 cities, open around 200 distribution centres across India and scale
hiring and onboarding talent in the near future.
Active Regions Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad

Funding $34.6 Mn (INR 250 Cr) (Series B) by Accel US, Syngenta
Ventures, Neoplux, ZIGxN founder Jo Hirao, HR Capital, Trifecta
Capital, Nan- dan Nilekani and Qualcomm Ventures
Impact 3000 farmers, distribution to 4000 retailers, movement of 300
tonnes of fresh produce on a daily basis in less than 12 hours
Website www.ninjacart.in
Fasal – Climate Smart Precision Agriculture Solution
Founded In 2018
Founders Ananda Verma and Shailendra Tiwari
Product Name Fasal Microclimate System and SaaS
Technology Used AI, Ml, IoT and Data Analytics
Objective To increase and improve the quality of per acre yield
Startup Description
Fasal is a smart agriculture solution which when installed, starts recording variety of
microclimatic parameters like temperature, humidity, air pressure, leaf wetness, soil moisture,
soil temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and rainfall.
It then uploads this data to our cloud server, where our predictive engine runs machine
learning and AI algorithms to help farmers in :
1. Predicting Crop diseases, and pest outbreaks
2. Ideal time to sow and harvest any crop
3. Optimizing resource utilization like water management, pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers
etc. For example, it informs farmers what is the right time to irrigate or spray pesticides.
4. It provides real-time alerts based on farm, crop, and weather conditions to take
preventive actions against reacting to situations by the farmer.
5. Online Farmer’s network, where farmers all across India can ask questions, share
new
agriculture practices etc. learn about mandi rates as well as various government schemes.
Mode of Action
Step by Step How Fasal Works
Sense: Fasal monitors critical microclimatic parameters, including Temperature, Humidity,
Rainfall, Soil moisture at various levels, Leaf wetness, Soil temperature etc., 24x7x365 from
your farm and uploads it to Fasal cloud platform.
1. Analyse: The data is then analysed and presented, making your crop’s health accessible
to you anytime, anywhere on any device for decision making like irrigation management,
resource optimization, increasing yield, increasing quality of yield etc.
2. Predict: Captured data is used by our prediction models to predict the ideal growth
conditions, resource requirements including fertilizers, Crop diseases, and microclimatic
weather predictions.
3. Act: Farmer gets notified on his device and actions can be taken directly from it, like
switching
on drip irrigation etc.
Their business model includes a nominal monthly subscription fee. There is no upfront
charge or deposit. It is a pay-as-you-go model. For large scale and institutional farmers, they
also offer to sell their IoT device and charge less subscription on software usage. It has
worked pretty well for the startup to penetrate the Indian agriculture market which is very
price sensitive. Fasal is competing against Indian startups like Yuktix and Exabit Systems, while
the competition worldwide includes Cropx, Pycno, The Yield technology Solutions, and
more.
Focus Crops Tomato, Capsicum, Potato, Onion, Chilli, Pomegranate and

Grapes
Active Regions Bengaluru and Chhattisgarh
Funding Friends And Family: $45,000, Zeroth.ai Pre-Seed Funding:
$120,000
Impact 20 Independent Farmers, 4 B2B Farmers and Grover-Zampa, One
of the Largest Vineyards of India is Fasal’s customer
Website www.fasal.co
AgriCx Lab
Founded In 2016
Founders Ritesh Dhoot and Saurabh Kumar
Product Name Agricx Certification Software
Technology Used AI and SaaS
Objective To remove subjectivity out of the quality assessment process
and make it reliable and easy-to-use, in order to enable a
standardized and fair value (grades, price etc.) to different
kinds of produces.
Startup Description
Agricx provides a quick, accurate, portable and easy-to-use quality assessment tool. The solution
currently involves imaging of produce using a standard smart phone and assessment using
state-of-the-art deep learning and computer vision-based algorithms, making it extremely
quick, portable and scalable. Agritech startup agricx is helping farmers get a fair price by
grading and certifying their produce with its AI-based SaaS solution. Agricx, is striving to
bring in a reliable crop-grading system in India, with the aim of eliminating middlemen in
the supply chain and enabling farmers to earn a fair price for their produce. Ritesh Dhoot
and Saurabh Kumar, who started Agricx in 2016, realised that the main reason for unfair
pricing of agriculture produce was the fluctuating quality and standard of the produce, an
acute problem, according to the duo.
Agricx has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-based SaaS solution
to simplify the grading system and eliminate variability in the quality of produce
sourced. The core idea behind Agricx’s business model is to streamline the procurement
process by establishing accurate and precise grading systems with the help of technology.
Agricx lab seeks to be a bridge between farmers and cold storages on one side and
procurement specialists on the other, helping the latter procure their requirements in an
efficient manner with the use of technology.
For this, the startup has partnered with cold storages (who are measured against stringent
parameters) across India and listed their certified potatoes on its platform. Agricx also
provides an additional offline service where their internal team visits cold storages to
double check and evaluate the produce. However, this is an on-demand service and is
provided over and above their technological solutions. The startup’s core service is
completely based on the SaaS application it has developed. The application enables cold
storages to click images of samples and grading is done based on some pre-determined
measures. The data is then stored for future reference. The data contains information
such as:
• Who graded the sample
• The quantity of sample used for assessment
• When and where the grading was done
The certification software uses an advanced proprietary algorithm to accurately detect
grade specifications of potatoes from the images captured.
The application is also easily scalable as it can grade high volumes and different types of
samples in minimal time, thereby establishing a reliable and transparent grading system. A
single image of the produce can be evaluated just within 30 seconds. Agricx’s USP is its deep
learning technology. The startup’s convolutional neural networks (CNNs/ConvNets)-based
algorithm aid in image processing, classification, and segmentation of produce. For the
uninitiated, CNNs are artificial intelligence networks that analyse visual imagery. In this case,
they help determine the quality of produce by evaluating the crop images.
Mode of Action
Active Regions North India (UP, Delh-NCR, Agra, Gujarat, Mohali etc.) &
Karnataka
Funding INR 3.25 Cr till now from the Centre for Innovation Incubation
and
Entrepreneurship (CIIE) and Ankur Capital
Impact Clients such as Mccain India, Mahindra, and over 100 cold
storages in the country an also have already certified over 2 Mn
Kgs of Potato in India
Website www.agricx.com
Kamal Kisan
Founded In 2013
Founders Devi Murthy
Product Name Vegetable Planter, Mulch Layer, Raised Bed Maker, Mulch cum Bed
Maker, Backpack Weeder and Sugarcane Planter
Technology Used Engineering-Led Innovation
Objective To develop cost-effective, smart mechanization solutions for
India’s small and marginal farmers, to reduce labor dependence and
increase profitability.
Startup Description
Kamal Kisan aims to develop a series of farm equipment especially targeted towards small
farm owners. These equipment will then be provided as a mechanized service directly on
the farm. The equipment can substitute farm activities which are heavily labour-dependent
and contribute a significant amount to the total cost of crop production. Kamal Kisan works
with a franchise- based model to deliver farm equipment, which can substitute the farming
activities carried out by labour, as a service to the farmers. The rationale behind
choosing the service model is to effectively deliver equipment to the farmer as a variable
expense rather than a capital investment, which can be extraordinarily challenging for small
and marginal farmers. The founder feels that “a business must not exist for the sole purpose
of earning revenues but must also create an impact on the ecology in which it exists.”
Kamal Kisan’s India focused innovation in agricultural equipment delivers unique,
mechanical devices that offer at least 50% increase in process efficiency, resulting in at
least 50 percent cost benefit to farmers. This become a valuable proposition in the face of
23 percent migration of rural labour to urban centres. With farmers spending over 40
percent of their total cultivation cost on labour alone, the profession is no longer profitable
and hence over 100,000 farmers give up farming every year. With lack of relevant
technology, and the cost of labour doubling every 3 year, the food security concerns of the
country will become a reality by 2020. Kamal Kisan vision is to be restore profitability in
agriculture and restore the pride of the farmer.
Kamal Kisan is a registered as a brand name under Simple Farm Solutions Private Limited.
Kamal Kisan develops, manufactures and sells a series of farm equipment specially
targeted towards small farm owners (<2 Ha). This equipment will be chosen to substitute
farm activities that have the following characteristics: 1. Have heavy labor dependence, 2.
Contribute significantly to total cost of production and 3. Do not have any relevant
mechanized solution
The design of the products have the following features: 1. Suitable for use on small farms, 2.
Minimal dependence on fuel, 3. Ease of self-maintenance to reduce dependence on post-
sales service, 4. Integrated with existing farming practices to lower adoption barriers and 5.
Cost- effective. The Bengaluru-headquartered Kamal Kisan has six products in its portfolio:
Vegetable Planter, Mulch Layer, Raised Bed Maker, Mulch cum Bed Maker, Backpack Weeder and
Sugarcane Planter. The products are priced between Rs. 2,000 (vegetable planter) and Rs.
50,000 (a tractor attached with bed-cum-mulch layer). Kamal Kisan follows an interesting
business model: design the machinery, get it made by small factories and sell to big
farmers.
Big farmers often rent them to small farmers. So far Devi has sold items to 3,000 farmers and
her machinery has reached over 10,000 farmers via rentals in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Kamal Kisan has direct (farmers) and indirect (those who rent) beneficiaries. The rental
model was set up with the help of Tata Trusts and Social Alpha, and is currently operational
in Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. The founder also mentioned that farmers are generally
reluctant to use equipment. They were accustomed in using cheaper imported machinery,
which had no post-sales services. They were left with a feeling of mistrust. Kamal Kisan
design the products in such a way that even a blacksmith can fix them.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Rental service in Jharkhand and sales service in Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh
Funding INR 5 lakh (Seed Fund) by IIT Madras’s Rural Technology and
Business Incubation Centre.
Impact 3000 farmers benefitted from Kamal Kisan and help them
cumulatively save more than Rs. 10 lakh
Website www.kamalkisan.com
FlyBird Farm Innovations
Founded In 2013
Founders Satish KS
Product Name Siri – Digital Motor Starter, Siri Nano – 4Channel Controller, Siri
– Sensor Based Irrigation Controller, Siri – Volume Based
Irrigation Controller, Siri – Timer Based Irrigation Controller,
Siri Link – Mobile App & Web Login Controller and Siri –
Smart Nutigator - Fertikit
Technology Used Micro-irrigation System, Web App/Mobile App Controllers,
IoT, Timer Based Machine
Objective To make every drop of water count with affordable, simple &
reliable irrigation controllers for every farmer (marginal to large)
which will save water and energy
Startup Description
In an effort to improve the plight of the farmers, and to address to the agriculture’s key
challenges like water scarcity, labor shortage and low production of crop, Bangalore based
FlyBird was founded in April 2013 by Satish KS. FlyBird Farm Innovations is social impact
agriculture startup and has been incorporated with a vision to solve main problems of the
agriculture sector. Through innovations and technology, they are focusing on
• Improvising the livelihood of farmers
• Improving the crop yield / production
• Saving water and electric power
• Integrating affordable technology for farmers
Irrigation and applying fertilizers to plants/crops are very important and critical tasks in any
cultivation. The firm is focusing on creating smart devices for these tasks and automating
the entire processes and bring in the precise irrigation and fertigation to any farm. These
sensors developed by FlyBird innovations for example, allow farmers to observe moisture
content levels and consequently spell out their irrigation requirements. FlyBird Innovation’s
technology helped farmers save 25-30 percent of water and improve crop yield or
productivity by 10-15 percent. So far, we have installed 350-400 controllers in villages in
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Siri is an automated precision irrigation and fertigation controller. It controls the water
pump and pipe valves based on how you program it.
• Timer based program: Siri will irrigate your field for a fixed time period
• Volume based program: Siri will irrigate the field with the exact amount of water you
specify
• Sensor based program: Siri will decide how much & when to irrigate your field based on
soil moisture / temperature levels and in greenhouses, also based on humidity. It is so
intelligent that it will postpone irrigation if it is raining.
Siri can automate your fertigation needs, controlling up to 5 tanks independently. It comes
with multiple options for add-on modules and sensors and can be controlled remotely
through the
Siri Link web/mobile interface. It can also be customized to be affordable for the marginal
farmer and scaling up to manage large corporate farms. Basic model starts from Rs 15,000
and it goes up to Rs. 26,000 (sensor based). Farmers shall be able to get returns in less than
6 months with promised reduction in cost of power, labor and water Right now small
farmers are showing keen
interest in our product but asking for the subsidy. Presently subsidy is available only in the
state of Karnataka. There are two 2 variants available viz. 8 channel/valves and 16
channel/valves to manage and control 1-5 acre and 10 acres farm respectively. Technical
staff of 6 people promptly reaches farmer for after sales service, being offered with/without
service charge depending on product warranty tenure. Presently company is focusing sales
in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. It plans to expand its sales operation in
other states too in coming months. The application of Siri rangges from Agriculture to
hydroponics, Poultry and even certain areas of Urban & Commercial setup.
Mode of Action
Sensor
Based
Irrigation
Controller
Active Regions Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

Funding INR 1 Crore by Villgro, Rianta Capital’s Artha Initiative, IIM
Ahmedabad’s incubation centre (CIIE), National Academy of
Agricultural Research and Management’s a-IDEA and Centre
for
Incubation and Business Acceleration.
Impact 350-400 controllers installed
Website www.flybirdinnovations.com
vDrone
Founded In 2017
Founders Kunal Sharma and Pranav Manpuria
Product Name Agricultural Aerial Mapping
Technology Used Aerial Robotics and Mapping Technology
Objective To provide farmers with actionable data through
mapping technology
Startup Description
Started by two engineers, vDrone uses drones to take pictures of the field, which are then
fed into the software developed by the startup and used to extract thermal images of the
plants. Using innovative mapping technology, the Bengaluru-based startup quickly analyses areas
of the farm which need attention, and helps the farmer cater to these needs. Thermal
imaging is used to assess a crop’s yield by determining the condition of the seeds, the soil,
the cropping pattern, the weather, access to water, use of fertilisers, and the lack of pests.
vDrone Agro develops custom- built drones to map farms for precision agriculture, and
provides farmers with actionable data to improve crop health and increase yield.
The firm charges farmers Rs 400-800 per acre for drone deployment. It has developed a
software which analyses the data collected to provide details to farmers about the health
and quality of land and crop, such as which portions are less fertile, what portions have
stunted growth, etc. The drones are lightweight multirotor quadcopters. The start-up has so
far tested and deployed drones at farms in Karnataka, where over 500 farmers have used
their services. It is now working with some agro-companies in Andhra Pradesh as well.
Though the civilian use of drones has been banned by the directorate general of civil
aviation, the founder said that vDrone Agro is one of six drone companies working with the
regulatory body to set up a platform for such companies.
With vDrone, farmers are able to get a better understanding of crop health by
monitoring the data mapped through drones. The enterprise seeks to improve productivity
and efficiency by permitting a more focused approach to farming through data. The
International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate), an incubation centre for
technology businesses, helped vDrone with resources and mentorship. vDrone develops
and designs drone-based systems for the agriculture sector with services like crop health data
analysis, mapping, analytics solutions, etc.
With the Rabi crop harvest just around the corner, these two engineers are now flying
their drones across a five-acre field. Some might say what a drone can do on a farm other
than take pictures of the field. But Pranav and Kunal have built a software into their drone
cameras which read thermal images of the plant making food. Once the drone lands, they
collect the images from its SD card and start mapping the farm on their laptops. Next, they
analyse the images and are able to tell the farm owner which areas of farm are fertile
and which are not. The startup works in 4 steps:
• Order a Scan: Place an order through website, or via a call.
• Deploy Drone: The firm plans the flight path and deploys the drone.
• Scan Farm: The autonomous drone scans the land in minutes.
• Actionable Data: The scan is processed to provide actionable data.
The startup has figured a business model that is based on the visualisation of the
image and the recommendations on top of those images. Most of the recommendations will
be about the energy produced in the plant and what should be done. The vDrone is built
in Bengaluru and works on a pay load of less than 6kg. It is built on light materials and
is a civilian drone.
Mode of Action
vDrone Agro’s Drone
Active Regions Karnataka

Funding Undisclosed
Impact 500 farmers have used the service in
Karnataka
Website www.vdrone.xyz
KrishiHub
Founded In 2016
Founders Bhoopendra Kumar and Jyotiska Khasnabish
Product Name KrishiHub Mobile App
Technology Used B2B e-Commerce Platform, AI and Mobile App Platform
Objective To provide farmers with end to end managed supply chain for
better returns and reduced crop wastage
Startup Description
KrishiHub is building an agricultural ecosystem with the implication of technology, design,
and data science for Indian farmers. The vision of the company is to empower farmers
across the country by improving their socio-economic status and providing agri-inputs
for better farming productivity. Through a demand-driven platform, KrishiHub delivers
fresh vegetables to businesses like restaurants/hotels/canteens/hostels/government
institutes/ cafeterias etc. directly from farmers, who are spread across different districts in
Uttar Pradesh. KrishiHub’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered supply chain enables
farm-to-doorstep delivery in less than 12 hours along with up to 25 percent reduction in
vegetable wastage compared to the traditional system. This also allows deploying
proprietary algorithms for determining delivery routes for each delivery agent for
logistics cost optimization and ensuring on-time delivery. KrishiHub employs a
combination of mobile apps and cloud based platform to manage the end-to-end supply
chain ensuring transparency and better control. The firm use a combination of multiple
proprietary algorithms to ensure on time delivery, optimized routing and failovers for
better logistics management. By removing middlemen from the supply chain, it
empowers them to give more income to farmers for their crops. The Agri Advisory
section of KrishiHub which is AI powered and strives to provide information on better
farming techniques, rich insights and forecast and to help farmers get more yield. The agri
advisory provides the following features:
• Crop Information: Information, management and best practices for growing 100+
non- organic and organic crops
• Mandi Price Forecast: Explore crop prices and up to 6 months of forecasts for crops
across all mandis in India
• Weather Info & Alerts: Get updated weather information, forecasts and alerts anywhere in
India
• Agri inputs Directory: Listings of seeds, fertilizers sellers, farm equipment dealers, cold
storage & soil testing labs nearby your area
• Discussion Forum: Discuss farming problems, explore solutions and participate in
discussion with farmers & agri experts
• Agri News & Videos: Links to various new and videos related to agri sector
Targeting the businesses like restaurants, hotels, kirana stores, online marketplaces, local
vegetable vendors and hyperlocal retailers, the company endeavours to be a technology platform
that is responsible for managing end-to-end supply chain. Through the app, the
company enables its customers to place orders, make online payment, track & create
order subscriptions. Additionally, the company adds value in terms of cleaning, grading,
sorting and packaging by ensuring quality products. What’s more is with its subscription based
model KrishiHub assures its customers on the products they placed to get delivered at their
door steps at chosen frequency and delivery slot. The major target is to build the entire
agricultural ecosystem with the inclusion of information and decision support systems for
farmers on all agricultural needs. In the coming months, the startup is going to put more
efforts on R&D to improve technology platform. Soon they are planning to explore
possibilities to start operations in Tier-2 cities and collaborate with state governments for
better outreach and to export Indian agri products to the rest of the world.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Uttar Pradesh (Agri Supply Chain), PAN India (Agri Advisory)
Funding Undisclosed Seed Funding from IIT Kanpur INVENT
accelerator and Villgro Innovation Fund along with a few angel
investors and
HNIs
Impact Agri Supply Chain: 30,000+ transactions, 9000+ MT
crops delivered, procures from 600+ farmers
Agri Advisory: 20,000+ farmers on the platform using the
advisory
services in 7 different languages
Website www.krishihub.com
Farmizen
Founded In 2017
Founders Shameek Chakravarty, Gitanjali Rajamani and
Sudaakeran Balasubramaniam
Product Name Farmizen Mobile App
Technology Used Mobile App Platform
Objective To build a food eco-system that’s better for consumers, better
for farmers, and better for the planet.
Startup Description
Farmizen is a mobile based application that enables an individual to grow chemical-free
organic
food in a mini-farm. Situated on the periphery of Bengaluru city, Farmizen manages five farms
of
10.5 acres, divided into mini farms of 600 sq ft each. By paying Rs 2500 as a monthly
subscription fee that includes the monthly rent to the farmers, the individuals can grow
vegetables of their choice as per the season in the twelve beds allocated to them in their
mini farm. They control the farm through an app just like Farmville and can visit the farm
anytime and harvest their own chemical-free produce. The Farmizen team ensures that the
consumer knows how and what reaches from their farm to their fork and has a system of
adequate checks and balances in place against any violation. The information is well
substantiated with pictures and live videos of the process.
The information is substantiated with pictures and live videos of the process and has a
system of adequate checks and balances in place against any violation.
A comprehensive technology stack built by them includes consumers’ app on Android

and iOS, a farm management app for farmers (also available in regional languages),
unmanned aerial videography using drones, image processing to identify crop growth
stages for remote monitoring, a driver app for optimising delivery routes, and managing the
last mile delivery.
The core of the platform is the Farmizen brain, which understands planting regimen for
various crops and is able to orchestrate the entire process, and recommend actions to
farmers based on real-time inputs from the field as well pre-defined schedules for over 50
different types of crops. A fixed amount paid to farmers every month would thus incentivise
the farmers to adopt the best techniques for production, instead of the most cost - effective
practice. The partner farmers of Farmizen make a minimum of three times more income
from their farms compared to traditional agriculture. Most farmers with small landholdings
eke out an average profit of Rs 7,000-8,000 per acre per month. The founder claims that in
the Farmizen model, farmers can earn three to five times that. On the other hand,
consumers get access to safe, , traceable food they can trust. Every week they get fresh,
locally grown seasonal food, free of chemicals - delivered directly to their doorstep or
harvested by them at the farm. Farmizen offers farming of 40 vegetables, including brinjal,
cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, and kale. The list keeps changing according to the season.
The app recommends crops that would suit the subscriber’s needs, a feature likely to
come in handy for farming greenhorns. To obtain farmlands, the company enters into rent-
share agreements with farmers. It also provides the farmer with agricultural equipment in
exchange for a higher share of the revenue. Farmers then grow the vegetables as per
subscribers’ requests.
A farmer with, say, 3 acres of land usually grows only 2-3 crops at a time. With Farmizen,
the company claims, he can grow up to 20 crops using natural methods. This also
improves the quality of the soil. Multiple crops also help from the risk management
perspective. If there are 30 crops growing on a farm and three fail, the rest compensate
for the loss. The app supports bilingual and voice-based instructions to help farmers
manage the mini-plots and adopt better agricultural practices.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Bengaluru

Funding Undisclosed seed fund by VC firm Venture Highway, former
Canaan Partners managing director and Indifi co-founder Alok
Mittal, founders of gaming portal adda52.com Mohit Agarwal
and
Anuj Gupta, and a few other angels.
Impact 750+ customers
Website www.farmizen.com
Farm Taaza
Founded In 2015
Founders Kumar Ramachandran
Product Name Farm Taaza Supply Chain Management
Technology Used B2B e-Commerce Platform, Mobile e-Commerce Store Front
Objective To create an efficient B2B entity focused on increasing the value
to
both the farmers and business customers
Startup Description
Launched in August 2015 by Silicon Valley veterans, Farm Taaza is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Gram Suchana Solutions operating in the fresh produce supply chain segment.
It focusses on increasing the value to both farmers and business customers. It currently
operates in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ooty. At present, the agritech startup
receives more than 200 orders a day from suppliers and clients, which amounts to
around 20 tonnes of produce daily. Farm Taaza works with over 1,400 farmers to
source and supply nearly 150 varieties of fruits and vegetables to clients. It services a
long list hotels, hospitals as well as supermarkets, including Big Bazaar, HyperCity, Manipal
Hospitals and Apollo Hospitals, among others. Around 60 percent of the startup’s net
revenue currently comes from the neighbourhood Kirana stores, with the rest contributed by
bigger retail outlets. The startup prides itself to work directly with farmers and source at
market leading prices to ensure higher quality sourcing and higher prices for the farmers.
Farm to Market time of 8-22 hours ensures freshness of produce. To reduce spoilage, the
firm packs, grades and ships produce directly from the sourcing centers. They are able to
assure high fill rates through sourcing from multiple competing sourcing centers. Whole sale
ordering made easy through the mobile e-commerce store front. The predictive technology
helps us in staying competitive by reducing logistics and wastage costs. Farm Taaza’s
sorting, grading and packing processes are specifically designed to meet the demands of
the customers. Farm Taaza, has reportedly raised $8 Mn Series A funding in a round led
by Epsilon Venture Partners. The round saw participation from IL&FS Investment
Managers’ Tara India Fund IV and other angel investors. With the Series A funding, the
firm wants to enable a seamless supply chain from farm to store and the next focus
will be to leverage machine learning, AI and data analytics for improved decision
making. It is also looking to utilise the funding for expansion across the southern part of
India. The financing will also enable the startup to further develop its tech stack. Farm
Taaza at its core is targeting the agricultural sector, especially the small farmer by bringing
technology in play to significantly reduce if not totally eliminate the inherent inefficiencies
in the supply chain from farmer to the store front and thereby passing on that savings
to the small farmer in terms of higher sale price for their produce, lower pricing for the end
consumer while also allowing Farm Taaza to establish and grow a strong enterprise.
Essentially, it was a win-win
situation for both the parties.
Mode of Action
Direct Sourcing from Farmers Freshness Higher Fill Rates
Volume Ordering Technology as Key Quality

made Simple differentiation
Active Regions Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ooty

Funding $8 Mn Series A funding in a round led by Epsilon Venture
Partners
Impact Working with 1400 farmers to supply 150 varieties of fruits
and
vegetables
Website www.farmtaaza.com
Yuktix Technologies
Founded In 2013
Founders Rajeev Jha
Product Name Automatic Weather Station, Air Quality Stations, Wireless Data Logger
and Sensor Catalog
Technology Used IoT and Wireless Sensing
Objective Providing hardware to farmers to reduce the post-harvest losses by
measuring indoor environment of Cold Storages and Warehouse
Startup Description
Yuktix Technologies was founded in October 2013. The firm has been working to
create indigenous remote monitoring solutions for emergent markets. It provides data
capture and communication solutions for remote monitoring and environment sensing.
Yuktix weather stations collect meteorological information such as temperature, humidity, rain,
wind speed every 15 seconds and up to 12 samples are taken for each transmitted
reading. They provide data parameterized to conform to standards set by the Indian
Meteorological Department (IMD) and the World Meteorological Organization. The station
was designed with enough flexibility to be used as an air quality or water quality-measuring
device simply by adding the pertinent sensors. The stations can serve as ready-to-deploy
templates for smart cities and urban monitoring. The startup is currently dealing in three
sectors, namely Agriculture, Urban and Industrial. In regard to the environmental aspect,
agricultural indicators are used to assess the ways in which agriculture affects environmental
quality and how changes in agricultural practices change the environment.
1) Crop Disease Prevention, 2) Smarter Greenhouse, 3) Post Harvest Monitoring and Remote
Management can make any agricultural activity capable of producing more and keeping the
environment safe for more production. Yuktix provides sensors based smart devices for
climate control and precision agriculture which can measure climate variables inside the
greenhouse and control light (Lux), humidity, temperature, water pumps, cooling pads and
shade nets inside your greenhouse to maintain ideal climate conditions. Yuktix has
developed a device along with a compatible sensor catalog to monitor environment
variables inside greenhouses. The device can interface to Temperature, Humidity, Lux, Soil
Temperature and Moisture, CO2, Leaf wetness and soil pH etc. sensors. A greenhouse
operator can monitor environmental conditions inside the greenhouse from anywhere on a
mobile device. Yuktix also provides cellular and long range radio (wireless) communication
options. The company is monetising by providing automated data. The team deploys the
device, generate data and gives it to the user. Moreover, the services are charged for once
during the rollout and then the company pays a recurring cost for using those services. The
startup is dealing in a device subscription based model.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ooty

Funding Undisclosed
Impact -
Website www.yuktix.com
Hosachiguru
Founded In 2014
Founders Ashok Jayanthi, Sriram Chitlur and Srinath Setty
Product Name Green Unit, Agri Asset Management Sevices and Agri Services
Technology Used Asset Management
Objective To create a unique green investment venture which allows
people to buy land and take up agriculture
Startup Description
Originating from the Kannada terms ‘hosa’ which means ‘new’ and ‘chiguru’ which
means ‘sprout’, Hosachiguru is a leading agricultural asset management startup that is
running over 30 sustainable green projects on 800 acres of land. Hosachiguru bridges the
gap between the demand and supply of horticultural produce that is safe, traceable and
meets global standards. The startup does this by management practices and scientific
farming techniques. The management practices includes features such as Climate Smart
Agriculture, Automation of the farm, Perma Culture, Bio Dynamic Farming, etc. These Hi-tech
farms generate commercial returns, preserve the environment and maintain social values
by generating rural employment and training. Hosachiguru also follows sustainable
farming methods such as drip irrigation, organic mulching, pesticide free farming, rain water
harvesting, etc. which focuses on soil health and water conservation to ensure production
of safe horticultural produce. The group partners with individuals who are existing farm land
owners or want to own farmland who want to generate green ROI. The partnerships are in
three form of Green Unit, Agri Asset Management and Agri Services.
Mode of Action
How it works
Hosachiguru follows a simple three-step process in its agri-investment model. First, it

procures land for its investors. The land is chosen on the basis of water availability, soil
conditions, and the budget of the investor. If a client already owns land, Hosachiguru takes
on the management of that land. It then designs and develops the land, depending on the
crops selected for cultivation. It prepares the soil for farming, sets up a drip irrigation
system or borewell, hires labourers to work on the farm, obtains an electricity line for the
farm, and so on. After the land is acquired and prepared, Hosachiguru manages the
operations for three months. Hosachiguru’s farming practices are careful and precise. It
adopts cutting-edge techniques to ensure maximum productivity. It employs the use of
precision farming – a method that helps to grow more crops by using fewer resources and
reducing production costs. For those with smaller budgets, the company cultivates short-
term horticultural crops like banana, melon, ginger, papaya, etc. And for who have more
time and money to invest in farmland, Hosachiguru plants timber – teak, sandalwood,
Melia Dubia, etc. To do what it does best, Hosachiguru consults experts from various fields.
It has set up sound irrigation practices with inputs from Ayyappa Masagi – the Water
Warrior of India. Also, H.S. Anatha Padmanabha, a renowned scientist, guides the company
on sandalwood cultivation. Hosachiguru’s revenues depend on the final harvest. Here, it
takes a profit only if the investor makes money too. For horticultural crops, the company
shares 50% of the profit with the client. For long-term crops, it takes a smaller share.
Though the company doesn’t completely practice organic farming, it intends to get there in
the future. As the land bought from farmers is usually contaminated by the prolonged use of
various pesticides, the company works towards neutralising the soil and restoring its
quality.
Active Regions Bengaluru

Funding Undisclosed
Impact 100+ Customer base, More 2000+acre of land management,
uplifting livelihood of 300+ farm labourers
Website www.hosachiguru.com
BigHaat
Founded In 2015
Founders Sachin Nandwana and Sateesh Nukala
Product Name Seeds, Plant Protection, Plant Nutrients and Farm Machinery
Technology Used Supply Chain, e-Commerce Platform, Web and Mobile Platform
Objective To empower every farmer to achieve more productivity, yield
and income.
Startup Description
BigHaat is founded by a team of avid entrepreneurs in the year 2015. BigHaat is India’s
largest Agri Inputs Marketplace Platform providing wide choice of quality inputs to farmers
at their doorstep. BigHaat is bringing accessibility of quality agricultural products and
personalized advisory by leveraging its Technology offering for farmer empowerment.
BigHaat has adapted multichannel strategy to reach out growers across India and
addressing their Agricultural Input needs. The portfolio offering includes broad range of
Seeds, Plant Protection, Plant Nutrition and Agri Implements. Its clientele includes farmers,
nurseries, FPOs, NGOs and other institutional growers. BigHaat has partnered with leading
Indian and Multi-National Agricultural Input brands comprising of DuPont-Pioneer, Monsanto,
Dow Agro Sciences, Tata Rallis, UPL Advanta, BioSeed, Mahyco, Seminis, Namdhari, Semillas
Fito, Known-You, Tata Agrico etc.
BigHaat Technology Platform is driving efficiencies of Agri Inputs manufacturers in the

areas of distribution, marketing and operations with data-driven business intelligence. The
data strategy enables various stakeholders of Agri value chain to come together and build
end to end ecosystem for farming community and driving sustainable agriculture. The
platform works on a hybrid model. It accepts online orders and also from their ‘feet on
the street’ model, where sales people directly interact with farmers to help them place
orders for products they need. For last-mile logistics and delivery, the startup works with its
own logistic teams and also relies on partners like India Post and Ship Rocket. Bighaat has
so far shipped about 10,000+ orders with an average ticket size of Rs 10,000, to over 20
States, including remote locations like Jammu and Kashmir and Andaman islands. BigHaat
also provides call centre support from Bengaluru and Hyderabad and has a ‘missed call’
service through which farmers can request for a call back. While BigHaat’s most in-demand
products are seeds, there is also good interest in other product categories. On the whole,
BigHaat aims to connect farmers to verified suppliers directly and reduce travel periods
required to procure their desired products. After the transaction, BigHaat also provides
post-sale support to farmers and helps suppliers by providing ‘demand forecasts’ based on
their data. The startup currently has an Android app and going forward wants to further
enhance its app experience and also develop an iOS app, to reach out to more customers
and partners. For the farmers benefit, BigHaat also aims to develop an in-depth knowledge
base about best practices and other relevant information. It currently doed this on a smaller
scale through ‘know how’ and ‘news’ sections on their website. The startup’s long-term goal
for the coming years include developing a full-fledged SMS-based offline ordering
system to help consumers and farmers in areas where there is intermittent or no Internet
connectivity. Also in the pipeline are location tagging information systems and a buyback
product platform.
Mode of Action
Active Regions PAN India platform serving across all geographies including
Jammu Kashmir, Andaman Nicobar etc.
Funding Undisclosed (Ankur Capital and Green Agrevolution)
Impact Have impacted the lives of more than 5 lakh farmers
Website www.bighaat.com
Intello Labs
Founded In 2016
Founders Milan Sharma, Nishant Mishra, Devendra Chandani and Himani Shah
Product Name Intello Labs Grading App and SaaS
Technology Used AI (Smartphone based)
Objective To provide advanced image recognition technology that can
recognize
objects, faces, flora and tag them in any image
Startup Description
Intello Labs is India’s Most Awarded Agritech Venture. Intello Labs started its journey in
2016 to investigate markets where AI adoption will be welcomed in the early stages of its
technology life. They began with use cases where to build, test and deploy AI solutions
rapidly before launching into chosen markets with confidence. Intello labs is recognized as
a de-facto business for expert AI capability in solutions that satisfy real world
challenges in near real time.
Intello Labs has invented a pioneering first-in-the-world app & equipment to test, grade
and analyse the visual quality parameters of agri commodities. They currently offer services for
testing and grading of wheat, corn, tomato, soybean, potato and onions. The firm is also in
the process of adding one commodity per month to their portfolio, thereby widening product
portfolio and client base. Intello Labs pride itself in customizing the product for each
individual company and each location on the basis of their requirements – thereby
deepening the knowledge of the commodity. The invention adds tremendous value to the
food and agribusiness industry by :
• Reducing the time taken for quality testing from 15 minutes to 2 minutes.
• Real time sharing of data across multiple locations and screens.
• An accuracy of 95 % and more beating the human eye.
• Removal of subjectivity in quality assessment.
• Promoting a shared understanding of the visual quality parameters.
• Eliminating disputes thereby saving managerial time and legal fees leading to increased
productivity.
The revenue/pricing model follows the B2B SaaS model. They charge a set-up fee for
every implementation. Following that, there is a monthly fee depending on usage (i.e.
number of images processed). Typically, the firm works with corporates who implement
these solutions; even if the farmer uses the application, the costs are borne by
intermediaries. The firm currently have paid project with Government of Rajasthan for
implementation of the product in Mandis under Rajasthan APMC to bring in objectivity in
grading of grains traded at the mandis while capturing mandi transaction data in digital
manner. This could then extend to 250 of 7500 Mandis registered under eNAM. The have
gone to work with 10,000+ farmers for wheat and grains grading in Rajasthan. The
founder mentioned that the fundamental challenge is to convince people of the product
viability. Since the idea is new and disruptive, people are usually skeptical, to begin with.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Worldwide

Funding INR 2.5 Crore (2 rounds of Angel Investment)
Impact 1 Million readings daily, 10+ countries worldwide, 25+
brands
associated and 1 Million SKUs and counting
Website www.intellolabs.com
eXabit Systems
Founded In 2014
Founders Amulya Mishra, Avinash Agrawal, Prashant Sahoo, Satyajeet Mahapatra
Product Name RobotiX and TactiX
Technology Used IoT and ML
Objective To help improve farmers economic condition with software application
for complete pre-harvest tracking and monitoring
Startup Description
eXabit has created an IoT platform which helps in resolving the broader problems of
agriculture such as fragmented land management, irrigation controls, seed behavior and
move towards sustainable agriculture. RobotiX in conjunction with TactiX makes the IoT
platform. They are the first movers in India to build an end-to-end IoT platform for
agriculture, enabling smart precision farming and smart control.
RobotiX: An IoT device, which captures micro-climatic data, soil condition data & real-time
controls to make it conducive for a better crop growth. RobotiX is made with tremendous
amount of research and field trials, capable to withstand varied weather conditions. Made
for both open- field and hi-tech farming, RobotiX is moving closer towards a cognitive
IoT solution.
TactiX: Software platform that comes with different modules for managing post-harvest and
pre- harvest processes. Modules help in management of distribution, logistics, inventory, storage,
and billing are few to highlight about. Dynamic reporting and analysis helps in keeping a tap
on what is happening within your enterprise.
RobotiX is a solar powered product, two kg in weight and 40 cm tall, comes equipped
with sensors that monitor crop health, but also soil temperature and humidity, and the
microclimatic conditions such ambient Temperature and humidity. It also provides the
farmers with real- time data through phone notifications and also the company’s android app
is available in five languages- Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and English-helping them make
the right decision like the right time and level of irrigation, required, among others.
eXabit’s TactiX-eHarvest helps farmers geo tag farmland, check the nearest market, railways,
road or canal, connect to a farm consultant, record and analyse crop progress and access crop
advisory services. TactiX-SCM enables various agri-allied services to manage the entire agri
supply chain, with modules such as POP, inventory, logistics, warehousing, processing,
distribution, invoicing and POS. Moreover, it’s BI (Business Intelligence) module can analyse
all the data gathered at every step in the supply chain. eXabit solutions have enabled
farmers with updated information on local weather forecasts, hyper-local or farm micro-
weather details, along with crop advisory three times a day. They have claimed that their
technology has helped farmers increase their overall gross margin by 25 percent. eXabit
mainly works in four major areas of Crop Management
& Advisory, Precision/Smart Farming, Farm Automations and Agri Analytics. And these all are
achieved with the judicious application of Farm Management, Agri-Input Management,
Cropping Process Tracking, Farm-Field Equipment Controlling, GIS And Map Based Search
And Pre-Harvest Cropping Process Planning which are the special product features of
eXabit Systems.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Worldwide

Funding Undisclosed
Impact 8000 farmer digitized, 37 Robots deployed, 15,164 acre land
monitored and 91 smart app user
Website www.exabit.in
Gold Farm
Founded In 2015
Founders Abhilash Tirupathy and Karthic Ravindranath
Headquarters Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu and Bengaluru, Karnataka
Product Name Farm Equipment on Rental
Technology Used Mobile-based Application
Objective -
Startup Description
Moving from a single product company (solar water pumps) to a digital platform for agri
products and services, Gold Farm is making it easy for farmers to book farm
equipment. Brainchild of founders Abhilash Tirupathy and Karthic Ravindranath, Gold Farm
was started in September 2015. Gold Farm was born with the idea of using the sharing
economy (the ‘Uber’,’Airbnb’ business model) to make it resource efficient for farmers
to access farm equipment. This is a mobile-based application that helps farmers get
farming equipment on rental basis. The farmers, using the app, can identify available
equipment in their area, make bookings, and make payments. The equipment owner is
able to rent out his equipment and is able to monitor its utilization. Gold Farms is to
the farming community what Uber and Ola are to the urban mobility space in India. Gold
Farm has equipment hiring centres in 11 villages across Kolar and six in Gadag in
Karnataka. Using the Gold Farm app or by dialing the call centre, farmers up in a 30 km
radius from these centres can book tractors and other equipment. From a two-person
startup, Gold Farm has now grown to a 100-people company. Its aim is to provide
farmers with products and services through a convenient platform and have a positive
impact on their lives. Its platform has benefitted over 1000 farmers on ground. Through its
mobile application and a call service, the startup provides an easy way to book a farm
equipment. For this, it collaborated with the local people and created a network of booking
agents, who had a sound knowledge of using a smartphone and carrying out online
transactions. They helped the farming community get access to the mobile app. At present,
there are over 250 booking agents and over 500 tractor owners connected with the mobile
app. It also works closely with the government and farm equipment manufacturers to make
farm mechanisation affordable to small and marginal farmers. Gold Farm offers a range of
implements such as rotavators, disc harrows, rotary tillers and MB ploughs. The services
are charged on an hourly basis, based on the tariff fixed by a local panel that includes a
government representative, mainly the District Agriculture Department officials. Further, each
tractor registered on the platform is attached with a hardware device which collects data about
the land holding and size of the farm. Through IoT, in the future, the founders hope to
accurately predict the efficient farm equipment model required by a farm based on its
shape and size.
Mode of Action
The OLA for Farm Equipment
Active Regions Tamil Nadu and Karnataka

Funding $2 million (Rs 13 crore) in seed funding from farm equipment
and automobile manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra and
early-
stage venture catalyst Infuse Ventures
Impact 100 tractors, 150 farm implements, 13 CHSE centres, 1000+
farmers benefitted
Website www.goldfarm.in
Thanos Technologies
Founded In 2016
Founders Harish Alladi, Prathyush Akepati and Pradeep Palleli
Headquarters Hyderabad, Telangana
Product Name Agricultural Aerial Spraying
Technology Used Aerial Robotics
Objective To provide farmers with innovative aerial solutions to conventional
terrestrial problems.
Startup Description
Thanos Technologies is an Aerial Solutions provider using drones to offer innovative
solutions to conventional problems. Using a mix of Hardware and Software platforms, the
firm is redefining services which are conventionally catered to by terrestrial solutions.
Thanos Technologies is a start-up that hopes to help farmers with its drones. The IIIT
Hyderabad Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and ICRISAT incubated start-up
incorporates the finesse of aeronautics in making life easier for farmers. The team works
primarily in the areas of agri-tech, agri- automation as an aerial spraying platform, agri-
intelligence in terms of crop monitoring and plant count, apart from its more ambitious
projects of working on army military and defense fields. The aerial spraying platform
covers an acre of land in a uniform and efficient manner in just 15 to 20 minutes. This
helps reduce input costs for the farmers, and also possibly improving the yield and soil
health. A mobile app is used to mark the boundaries of the land that needs to be
sprayed. Once marked, a couple of settings like the height and speed of the drone are
entered. After this, all basic checks are performed and the drone lifts-off. No manual
intervention is necessary during the spraying activity, and the drone comes back to the
starting point by itself, or can be brought back manually if needed. Typically, the
conventional method of spraying requires nearly 100-150 liters of pesticide (High-Volume
Spraying) to be sprayed per acre. Apart from being incubated in CIE IIITH and ICRISAT,
Thanos is also supported and mentored by RICH (Research and Innovation Circle of
Hyderabad - A Telangana Govt. Initiative), and also by Surge Impact Foundation and
Berkeley Smart AP. While quite a few companies seem to have either imported drones or
built crude versions that are not market ready, thanos has it a point to design, build and test
in-house a market-ready product. This is done to keep the capex low and the revenue model
more financially viable. However, most of the components required to build Unmanned
Aerial System (UAS) platforms are not manufactured or even sold in India, and they have to
be imported from China. Some of the materials we have imported include 3K carbon
fibre sheets, DC motors, propellers and other minor electronic components. One of the
critical components of the drone is the Flight Controller (the brain of the system), which is
also being procured from China and other countries. The company is now working on
high-endurance drone prototype (one hour or more flight time) that can be useful in
surveillance applications for different types of users (Police, Army, Municipalities). They are
also looking closely at drone delivery and AI-based solutions. The team has a spraying-as-a
service model, where they intend to charge Rs 500 to Rs 600 per acre.
Mode of Action
Thanos’s In-house built Spraying Drone
Active Regions Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

Funding Bootstrapped
Impact 25 farmers; area covered under commercial spraying: 180
acres
Website www.thanos.in
Kheyti
Founded In 2015
Founders Ayush Sharma, Kaushik K, Sathya Raghu Mokkapati and Saumya
Product Name Greenhouse-In-A-Box
Technology Used Greenhouse, Protected Cultivation
Objective To provide low-cost farming solutions to help small farmers increase
yield and protect them from the impact of climate change
Startup Description
Kheyti design, adapt and implement low-cost farming solutions that help small farmers
increase yield and predictability of produce. They combine these technologies with end-to-
end support to give these farmers a seamless path towards income increase. Kheyti has
developed a “Greenhouse-in-a-box” – an affordable, modular greenhouse bundled with full
stack services that uses 90 percent less water, grows 7 times more food and gives farmers
a steady dependable income. Kheyti has created several scaled-down versions that range
from 258 to 553 square yards, an area that takes up just two to five percent of a typical
small farm there. The size reduces the investment risk - farmers are still able to grow
other crops on the rest of their land. Kheyti introduced Greenhouse-in-a-Box (GIB), a low-
cost, modular greenhouse integrated with end-to-end support, to battle income variability.
This initiative by Kheyti, unlike other existing schemes by private and public organisations,
offers small-size greenhouses. The smallest size that the other competitors provide is around
1/4th of an acre. Kheyti’s greenhouse is 1/16th of an acre, and it occupies just 2 percent
of land. Each GIB costs Rs 1,60,000. A farmer is required to pay a down payment of Rs
30,000. The balance is given as a loan by Kheyti’s financing partners with a repayment term
of three years. Kheyti will earn through the sale of the GIBs to farmers and commission
charged on annuity from input companies on input linkages and market linkages. Apart from
GIBs and financing, Kheyti also provides input linkages to help farmers get timely access to
qualitative seeds and fertilisers. It provides training and ongoing advisory to help farmers
grow the right way and helps them with market linkages with organised retailers to create a
reliable marketing channel. Innovation has not stopped here for Kheyti. It is working on
further reducing the cost of GIBs and make it more economical and efficient. Kheyti is
working with Stanford on this front.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Telangana

Funding Undisclosed
Impact 300 farmers
Website www.kheyti.com
KHETHINEXT
Founded In 2017
Founders Phanidhar Palakoti
Product Name KHETIAPP
Technology Used Mobile App Platform
Objective To support small farmers by improving their crop productivity
through virtually connecting with rest of the agriculture
ecosystem
Startup Description
KHETHINEXT Platform enables digital agriculture transformation, is a product of PALS
AGRI eCONNECT Private Limited. This platform supports small farm holding farmers
to reduce their cultivation costs, connect with financial institutions, obtain higher
remunerative prices and improve their crop productivity through virtually connecting
with rest of the agriculture ecosystem, likes input agencies, financial institutions,
produce buyers, agriculture experts, policy makers and government extension officers.
An incubatee of the Agri-Business Incubator of the ICRISAT farmers. It also helps the
farmers find the buyers for their produce. With tie ups with farmers, it also extends
loans and insurance services to farmers. KHETINEXT is also getting mentored from the
Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad, an initiative by Government of
Telangana. Farmers, through KHETINEXT can buy farm inputs, get access to government
schemes, good practices, weather alerts and market prices. They can also use the same
platform for selling produce, seeking farm advice, training, insurance and other services.
Each farmer group has generated Rs 50 lakh through input sales and Rs 2 crore worth of
agri produce sale. It now reaches farmers in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana
through its 25 farmer groups including Sehamihta, Pothana NGO, eFresh, Nilagiri, Prerana,
Girijana Vikas, CCD, SARDS, Sangameswara Famers Producer Company Limited. The firm is
hoping to add about 100 FPOs/ NGOs in a year to 15 months from 2018. The number of
farmers registered will increase manifold in three years as the firm targets to spread its
activities across India and also tap Africa. Currently, input agencies like the Rallis, SWAL,
Coromandel, Suma Agro, Delta Seeds and Pro Turf among other, custom hiring agencies and
buyers like Olam, Terravana, Big Basket, Freshplus are partners with KHETINEXT. There are over
150 products available for farmers to procure which are required for cultivation
Mode of Action
Active Regions Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana

Funding $5 million (about Rs 32 crore) from a Dubai-based firm
Impact Currently around 65,000 farmers are deriving benefits from
the
services of KHETHINEXT platform while 4.72 lakhs farmers are
registered on the app.
Website www.khetinext.com
Cheruvu
Founded In 2014
Founders Samhita Shiledar, Aditya Dahagama, Kavya Vayasi,
Shamitha Keerthi, John Monnat
Product Name Comparative Yield Assessment and Soil Testing
Technology Used Agricultural Technology, Machine Learning, Decision Making
Objective To improve economic, environmental, and social sustainability of
farmers in developing countries.
Startup Description
Cheruvu is an integrated precision agriculture solution for each farmer, combining four
types of data: soils, weather, satellite imagery, and farming practices. They conduct soil
tests and based on the results, soil health cards are provided to farmers, helping them
understand their soil. Cheruvu provides services of soil testing through on-field soil sample
collection & analysis and subsequently analyzes this data along with data from other
sources to provide decision support for nutrient management in farm fields. The company
provides a digital platform for disseminating information related to best practices for
nutrient management in farm fields and combines the additional data obtained from soil
sampling of a farm field to update the listed best practices. The company claims to use
machine learning algorithms for analyzing the data. The digital platform has modules for
geo-tagged farm mapping, nutrient management, workflow management, and
dissemination of updated hyper-local weather information.
The product is a site-specific precision agricultural tool that provides best nutrient
practices for small farmers in developing countries. In this process, Cheruvu tracks farming
inputs and operations such as tilling, sowing, weeding, fertilization, pesticide application,
irrigation, and harvesting. In the long run, the firm aims to leverage this high-resolution
data on practices, soils, climate, inputs, and outputs to address other inefficiencies across
the agricultural value chain. Cheruvu has established relationships across political and
administrative functionaries in India, designed and conducted a survey of 1,100 small farmers
to understand pain points, co- created survey to document agricultural practices of local
farmers, developed a web application for data collection, hired field managers from local
communities, established an ecosystem of partners for local outreach, collected 2,700 soil
samples from farmers and conducted soil tests, designed an individualized farmer nutrient
application guidance tool, tested and installed weather stations, created partnerships with local
scientists and universities to collaborate on key research, conducted customer discovery
interviews and developed a business model. Currently, they are validating the business
model by selling service to farmers and conducting crop experiments to further evaluate the
efficacy of service model. The business model addresses the shortcomings of the
governmental program by developing farmer friendly communication methods through co-
creation and continuous feedback. Cheruvu test soil, engage farmers and their communities,
and build trust with locally influential farmers to engage a wider community. The result is
action by the individual farmers who are participating in a comparative assessment of their
yields, while providing and learning from local best practices.
Mode of Action
Active Regions Telangana

Funding Undisclosed
Impact 3600 farmers associated, conducted testing in 54 villages, 2700
soil test performed
Website www.cheruvu.in
3. Startup Policy and Implementation by Central and State
Governments to boost Indian Startup Ecosystem
Role of Central Government
Central Government is playing a key role of channeling the energy, aspirations and vision of
the youth. The measures propagated to build a pro-entrepreneurship environment are
targeted to:
• Reduce regulatory barriers;

• Facilitate opportunities for learning and development;
• Develop large scale innovation driven infrastructure facilities; and
• Promote active collaboration among entrepreneurs, industry and academia
Government of India under the Startup India initiative is collaborating with various ecosystem
stakeholders across different parts of the country to ensure that all the above
components are available for entrepreneurs and Startups to engage with and utilize to its full
potential. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has been actively taking
requisite measures to encourage entrepreneurship and promote innovation. There are over
16,200 Startups recognized till date under Startup India that are spread across 479 districts,
covering all 29 States and 6 UTs. In order to provide growth stage funding to Startups, a Fund
of Funds (FFS) of INR 10,000 Crore has been setup. This is supporting innovators and risk
takers in their path towards the creation of a New India. In order to improve regulatory
regime, an institutional mechanism has been established within Startup India. A Committee of
Secretaries (CoS) chaired by Finance Secretary, for dealing with regulatory issues facing
Startups has been constituted. Over 22 regulatory amendments have been made to support
all the ecosystem stakeholders. The detailed progress of Startup India Action Plan and
Regulatory Amendments can be obtained from the website of Startup India (www.
startupindia.gov.in).
Role of State Governments
States have a vital role to play in promoting

the Startup ecosystem. One of the core
strengths of India lies in its diversity,
leading to enormous opportunities for cross-
learning from each other.
Only four State Governments were actively

supporting Startups before the launch of
Startup India through a State Startup
policy. The Startup movement across the
country was fragmented and there was a
need for consolidating standalone efforts.
Emphasis was
also required simultaneously to encourage more and more States to undertake new
initiatives. The national priority initiative has led to a wide spread movement across the
country and presently 22 States have their own Startup policies. Many other States and Union
Territories (UTs) are in the process of drafting their policies and operating guidelines. The
core functioning of an enabling ecosystem in a State is a function of the policy framework
and effective implementation of the same. In the journey of developing a conducive Startup
community, it is important that States and UTs exchange and adopt good practices
undertaken by each other.
Recently, The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion conceived the States Startup Ranking
Framework with the key objective to encourage States and Union Territories to take
proactive steps towards strengthening the enabling Startup ecosystems within their
jurisdictions. There were 38 action points categorized into 7 broad pillars such as Startup
Policy and implementation, Incubation support, Seed Funding, Angel and Venture Funding,
Simplification of Regulations, Easing Public Procurement and Awareness & Outreach. The
ranking methodology was aimed at creating healthy competition among States to further
learn, share and adopt best practices. A total of 27 States and 3 Union Territories participated in
the exercise. Evaluation Committees comprising of independent experts from Startup ecosystem
did a painstaking assessment of responses across various parameters. Many parameters
involved getting feedback from beneficiaries. More than 3200 calls were made in 9 different
languages to empathetically connect with beneficiaries to get a real pulse at the
implementation level. Result of the Ranking exercise of the states according to 7 pillars are
as follows:
States with exemplary performance in the

Pillars
respective category*
Startup Policy and Implementation Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand,
Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan
Incubation Hubs Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala,
Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh
Seed Funding Support Bihar, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka,

Kerala, Odisha, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu
Funding Support– Angel & Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala

Venture Funding Support and Rajasthan
Simplified Regulations Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal

Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar
Pradesh and West Bengal
Easing Public Procurement Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Odisha
Awareness and Outreach Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala,

Odisha and Telangana
*States are presented in alphabetical order

A small outlook on the various policy changes in the Southern States of India to promote Startup
Ecosystem:
Pillars States with exemplary performance in the respective category*

Andhra Pradesh • The Government shall develop physical incubation infrastructure through
Public Private Partnerships.
• The Government shall establish at least one world class
Accelerator/ Incubator by inviting global Accelerators and Incubators
to set up their programs in the state.
• The government will create an Initial Innovation Fund of Rs.100
crore (1 billion) for entrepreneurs and businesses.
• A single window clearance will be provided for VAT, Labour, Municipal
and other local registrations and compliances. It would be supported
by state- of-the-art centralized help desk on 24x7 basis duly
leveraging the e-Biz portal set up by GoI.
• Reimbursement of VAT/CST on goods supplied to the Incubator or
incubatee and on sale or leasing of goods by Incubator to incubatee
would be provided.
• An empowered ‘Andhra Pradesh Innovation Council (APInC)’ would
be formed with the representatives of industry, incubators and the
other stakeholders.
Karnataka • For Domestic Patents: The cost of filing and prosecution of patent
application will be reimbursed to incubated startup companies upto a
limit of Rs. 2 lakh per Indian patent awarded
• The reimbursement will be done in 2 stages - 75 percent after the
patent is
filed and the balance 25 percent after the patent is granted
• 30 percent of the actual marketing costs including travel
incurred in international marketing through trade show
participation will be
reimbursed on submission of valid claims. This incentive will be subject to a
maximum of Rs. 5 Lakhs per year per company.
• Service Tax paid by startups incubated in Government of
Karnataka supported incubators and CIFs whose annual turnover does
not exceed Rs. 50 Lakhs for the first three years will be reimbursed
Kerala • The government shall give Rs. 2 Lakhs per innovative idea /startup and
this shall be to startups within the state. The funds shall be disbursed
through KSUM to startups registered in the ecosystem.
• The government shall continue to provide pre commercialization
funding through KSUM and this service shall be extended to startups
registered in the state startup ecosystem.
• KSIDC is offering seed funding to any new ventures promoted by
young entrepreneurs subject to a maximum of Rs. 25 Lakhs per
venture or 90 percent of the initial cost of the project, whichever
is lower.
• A delegation of 25 startups from schools/colleges will be identified
through a contest and exposed to Silicon Valley through Silicon Valley
Visit Program.
• The government proposes to give subsidized infrastructure for the
scale ups in terms of built up space in government owned/assisted
parks. The subsidizing could be in terms of reimbursing part of the
rent (a maximum
of 50 percent or Rs. 20 /sqft) whichever is lower.
Telangana • The Startup can pay SGST to the relevant department and avail
reimbursement on a yearly basis for a maximum total turnover of Rs.
1 cr per annum for the first three years of operation.
• Reimbursement of 30 percent of the actual costs including travel
incurred in international marketing through trade shows, with a
maximum limit of Rs. 5 lakh per year per company.
• The cost of filing and prosecution of patent application will be
reimbursed to the incubated startup companies subject to a limit of
Rs. 2 lakh (0.2 million) per Indian patent awarded.
• Startups that record a year-on-year growth rate of 15 percent, as
per audited accounts, shall be eligible to get a grant of 5 percent on
Turnover, subject to a limit of Rs.10lacs within a period of three years
from the date of incorporation.
• To promote idea stage companies, the government shall offer
recruitment
assistance of Rs. 10,000 per employee for the first year.
Tamil Nadu • A ‘One-Stop-Shop’ guided by a portal and ably supported by a help-

desk
will be set up to facilitate registration, compliances and
certification.
• TANSIM will recognise / register a Start-step or Startup within 10 days
from receipt of online application.
• A Policy research group (Think Tank) shall be set up to carry out
research on startup ecosystem.
• Industrial organisations and private commercial organisations will be
encouraged to setup Incubators/Accelerators using funds allocated under
schemes of Niti Aayog, DST, DBT, DEITY and MSME-DO of
Government of India.
• The State will set up Tamil Nadu Startup Fund of Funds of INR 250 crore
to
be managed by a professional financial agency such as SIDBI.
• The mission shall aim for a minimum of 1,00,000 high skilled direct
and indirect job creation in the startup ecosystem.
• Startups with a women founders or co-founders shall be supported
for
product development and marketing/ publicity/participation in fairs
and exhibitions.
Centre and States are making considerable efforts in creating awareness about
entrepreneurship among students. More than 100 boot camps have been organized by various
State Governments since the start of Startup India initiative. The buzz of Startup culture has
now reached 340 districts, where more than 600 entrepreneurship cells have been established by
State Governments. The role of entrepreneurship cells is to foster the culture of innovation
among students, who can use the space for conducting workshop, training, and sessions. As
part of this collective initiative, Center and States would need to work together and build
required infrastructure, dedicated system, pool of intellect and financial resources for all age
groups across the country. Center and State Governments would need to adopt targeted
approach for new emerging technologies, social issues and distinct demographics to scale up
the Indian Startup Ecosystem.
Recommendations
• Lack/Ignorance of farmers’ usage about smartphones leads to marginal utilization of the

startup services mainly provided on mobile based platform/application. Therefore, there is
a strong need to develop mobile training programmes to educate farmers and make
them capable to adapt new technological advancements especially in using
smartphones.
• The startups face a lot of problems regarding the awareness and outreach of their
products and services to farmers. In order to make startups successful, it is crucial to
enable seamless hybridisation of relevant technology by building a promising ‘new-age
distribution model’. It is the need-of-hour to develop a new way for the farmer to buy
products and get information as well as credit on one unified platform.
• There is a need for the government to help set up agritech-focused incubators and
grants which are currently less in number. Also, academia should encourage more
entrepreneurs to focus on this growing sector.
• Accelerators, incubators and mentors identified for the agritech startup ecosystem, along with
the pronounced policy and schemes, need to work in tandem with the startups to provide
the best technical support and reduce their gestation period.
• Banks and financial organisations also need to step up to the challenge and offer more
creative models of financing for farmers, entrepreneurs, incubators, and accelerators.
• Governments should provide better incentives to startups that are coming up effective
post- harvest management infrastructure such as storage, preservation, cold chain and
refrigerated transportation.
• States with the presence of emerging and growing startup hubs viz. Telangana, Tamil
Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala, etc. have to come up with favorable policies and implement
them soon enough to attract startups and investors similar to Karnataka which is home to
majority of Agritech startups.
• Being profit based organization, startups lay their major focus on large and medium
farmers. But in order to alter the scenario of the Indian agriculture it will be required
of them to emphasize more on small and marginal farmer who form the majority in Indian
agriculture.
Conclusion
A total of 366 agri-based startups have come up from 2013 to 2017 answering to the
problems of supply chain management, use of outdated equipment, improper infrastructure,
etc. Bengaluru (Karnataka) is one of the established startup ecosystem hub in India alongwith
Mumbai and Delhi & NCR. Looking at the geographical distribution, Karnataka and
Maharashtra together account for almost 50 percent of the total agritech startups opened in
the past 5 years. Karnataka accounts for two-third of the total funding received by start-ups
in the past 5 years. Agritech startups are also leveraging technology in the area of market
linkages such as retail, B2C and B2B marketplaces and digital agronomy platforms. Big Data
Analytics, Supply Chain/Market-linked Model, FaaS, IoT Enabled, Engineering-Led Innovation
and Miscellaneous other are the major sub-sectors where agritech startups are coming up.
The detailed description of the 20 startups featured in this study reveals that from ICT apps
to farm automation and from weather forecasting to drone use and from inputs retailing and
equipment renting to online vegetable marketing, they do all and everything. Multiple enabling
policies have been implemented to support agri startups, their early take off and successful
operations both by the Central as well as State Governments. Apart from the available
schemes and policies to support agritech startups, an institutional mechanism has been
created for smoother takeoff and successful implementation. A complete set of such
institutions is indispensable for grounding of intents as startups to profitable enterprises.
Going forward, agritech startups will need to critically address the inherent issues like low
landholding size, longer gestation periods, lower return on investments, lower affordability
amongst target groups, and skill and knowledge gaps amongst farmers while developing and
popularising their business models. Selling products and technologies to farmers is widely
recognised as a big challenge, and it is one area where many startups have still not figured
out a successful model. Aligning with farmers’ needs and committing to improve
productivity is not an easy task, and getting farmers to acquire the skills required to adopt
these technologies will involve a lot of effort.
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Annexures
Annexure 1
List of Top Active Accelerators in India
Sr. Name Launched Headquarters Focus Area(s)

No. In
1. 500 Startups 2010 California Consumer Commerce, Education, Design,
Bitcoin, Payment And Financial Service,
Adtech, IoT/Drones /Hardware, Onlive
Video, Foodtech, Digital Healthcare, Cloud
Service, International And Emerging Markets.
2. 50K Accelerator 2016 Hyderabad Payments, Security And Business
Interoperability
3. Aarambh 2016 Greater Noida Fintech, Cleantech, SaaS, AI, Big Data
Ventures
4. AIM Smart City 2016 Ashoka Education, Healthcare, Transport &
Accelerator University, Logistics, And Infrastructure
Sonepat
5. Amplifi Asia 2015 Mumbai B2B SaaS
6. Anscelerator 2016 Bengaluru Edtech
7. Appy Hours 2016 Bengaluru Web, Mobile, Robotics, Wearables,
Blockchain, VR And IoT
8. Autodesk N/A California Energy, Water, Transportation, Waste,
Entrepreneur Agriculture, Built Environment, Health &
Impact Program Well-Being, Marine
9. Avishkar 2016 Hyderabad Deeptech, Machine Learning, AR/VR
10. Axilor Ventures 2015 Bengaluru Consumer Internet, Enterprise, Fintech, AI,
Healthtech
11. Brand Capital 2016 Silicon Valley Edtech, Healthtech, Consumer Services And
GSV Fintech
12. Brigade REAP 2016 Bengaluru IoT, Cleantech & Renewable Energy,
Nanotechnology, Visual Computing, Logistics
& Supply Chain
13. Business World 2014 Delhi Sector-Agnostic
– BW
Accelerate
14. CATALYST – SG 2016 Bengaluru AI & Machine Learning, Big Data/Data
GSC Accelerator Visualisation, Voice-To-Text Transcription,
Client Sentiment Analysis
15. Cisco 2016 Bengaluru Networking And Infrastructure, Collaboration,
Launchpad Security, IoT, Video, Analytics, Cloud,
Machine Learning/Deep Learning/Natural
Language Processing, Visualisation/UX,
Virtual Reality, Smart Things, Last-Mile
Connectivity
16. DesignGild 2016 Pune Startups From Any Sector And Stage
Are Eligible To Apply
No. In
17. Edugild 2015 Pune Edtech, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality,
Learning Analytics, Adaptive Learning,
Skills Assessment, University Destinations,
Robotics, Corporate Learning Solutions In
Knowledge Management
18. ESpark-Viridian 2015 Noida Sector-Agnostic
19. First Light 2012 New Delhi Startups From Any Sector And Stage
Accelerator Are Eligible To Apply
20. five.eight 2016 Bengaluru Mother And Child Care, Cardiology,
Accelerator Oncology, Radiology, Surgery And Primary
Care
21. Forge 2015 Coimbatore Connected Devices, Industrial Internet, Digital
Innovation Businesses
22. GenNext Hub 2015 Mumbai Digital Technology
23. GHV 2014 Gurugram Healthtech, Edtech, Fintech, IoT, AR/VR,
Accelerator AI, Big Data, SaaS
24. Govin Capital NA Singapore Edtech, Medtech, Foodtech, IoT, Ecommerce,
Startup Virtual Reality, Thin SaaS, Fashiontech,
Accelerator Tourism
Program
25. GSF Global 2012 Gurugram Internet, Mobile
Acceleraor
26. Hax Hardware 2012 China and Hardware + Software, Mobile, Consumer
Accelerator San Francisco Electronics, Wearables, Robotics
27. HealthStart 2014 Hyderabad Digital Healthcare, Medtech, Wellness,
Disease Management, Fitness, Innovative
Distribution
28. HP Haven 2015 California Big Data
Startup
29. Indus Net Labs 2016 Kolkata Digital Technology, Software
30. Intel India 2015 Bengaluru Education, Sports, Health, Agriculture,
Maker Lab Banking, Financial Services And Insurance
(BFSI), E-Governance, Internet Of Things (IoT),
Cloud, And Client Compute.
31. ISDI Creative 2015 Mumbai Innovative Design, Technology
Accelerator
32. Jaarvis 2015 Gurugram Fintech, Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology,
Accelerator IoT, Agritech, Data Analytics, AI
33. Kyron Global 2012 Bengaluru Retail, Fintech, SMAC, AR/VR, IoT,
Blockchain, AI
34. Launchpad 2015 Sao Paula, Mobile Apps
Accelerator Alagos
35. LEAP 2015 Bengaluru Mobility, Big Data, Omnichannel, Supply
Chain, Marketing, And Security
36. Lowe’s 2016 UK and Augmented And Virtual Reality, 3D Printing
Innovation Labs Bengaluru And Scanning, And Robotics
No. In
37. Microsoft 2012 Redmond, Technology Enabled/Technology Startups
Accelerator Washington That Are Later Stage Or Enterprise
and Bengaluru Ready
38. NeoLeap 2016 Kolkata Across Sectors
39. NUMA Global 2015 Paris and Sector-Agnostic
Accelerator Bengaluru
40. Oracle 2016 Bengaluru Technology
Startup Cloud
Accelerator
Program
41. Quintype’s 2015 Bengaluru Digital Media Startups
SpeakWrite
42. Revvx Hardware 2016 Bengaluru IoT, Augmented/Virtual Reality, Robotics,
Accelerator Drones, Blockchain, Wearables, Connected
Automobiles
43. Rise Accelerator 2016 Mumbai Lending, Digital Banking Solutions, Trading,
Enterprise Mobility, Cybersecurity, Data
Analytics, Payments, Cryptocurrency,
Insurance, And Wealth Management
44. SAP-SINE Social 2016 Mumbai Healthcare, Clean Energy, Environment,
S-Cube Agritech And Foodtech
45. SAP Startup 2016 Bengaluru IoT, Big Data, Cloud, As Well As
Studio Verticals In Retail And Healthcare
46. Scale Up 2014 Pune and Customer Information Management,
Noida Mo- bile, Data Analytics, Location-Based
Services, Ecommerce Management, Machine
Learning
47. Spark10 2015 London and Software Technology-Driven Startups
Hyderabad
48. Shell Make The 2017 Bengaluru Cleantech
Future
49. Startup 2016 London Foodtech, Fintech, Healthcare,
bootcamp Ecommerce, Smart Transportation, IoT,
FinTech Cyber Security, Insurtech
50. Swiss Re 2016 Zurich and IoT Innovative Distribution Channels &
InsurTech Bengaluru Robotic Advisors And Analytics
51. Target 2014 Bengaluru Marketing, Omnichannel, Mobile, Big Data
Accelerator Analytics And Merchandising, Supply Chain
Technologies
52. The D.N.A 2016 Berlin IoT, Deep Learning, Analytics, Cloud, Machine
Learning/Artificial Intelligence, Virtual/
Augmented Reality, Blockchain
53. Thought 2016 Bengaluru AI, Big Data And Analytics, Mobility,
Factory Blockchain, IoT, Open API, Networking
54. TLabs 2011 Noida Internet, Mobile
55. VentureNursery 2012 Mumbai Media & Entertainment, Retail, Ecommerce,
Consumer Technology, Education, Cleantech
No. In
56. Y Combinator 2005 Mountain Sector-Agnostic
View, USA
57. YES Fintech 2017 Hyderabad Payments, Lending (Consumer + SME),
and Mumbai Trade Finance & Forex Solutions, Wealth
Management, Regulatory Technology Or
Reg-Tech, Customer Value-Added Services
58. ZDream 2015 Gurugram Technology, Media & Telecommunications
59. Z Nation Lab NA Mumbai IoT, Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning,
Consumertech, Edtech, Fintech
60. Zone Startups 2014 Mumbai Consumer, Enterprise, Social, Financial,
Health, IoT, Media, Technology, Education,
Data Analytic
Source: Startup India; Inc42; Yourstory; Indianweb2.com
Annexure 2
List of Incubators in India (Only 100)
Sr. Name Launch- Headquar- Focus Area(s) Startups Notable

No. ed In ters Incubated Startups
Till Date Incubated
1. Amity 2008 Noida Rural Innovation And Social 100+ ApnaCircle.
Innovation Entrepreneurship, ICT, Social com, Anduril
Incubator* Media And Ecommerce, Technologies
Mobile Computing And
Technologies, Analytics, Cloud
Computing And Big Data,
Edtech, Foodtech, Biotech,
Nanotech & Material Science
2. Amrita TBI* 2008 Kollam Technology, Social Welfare, 45+ & Skillovators,
Agriculture, ICT 181 Pin ‘N’
mentored Park,
Nikkos
3. BAIT-TBI* 2007 Tamil Nadu Application Of 24 N/A
Biotechnolo- gy In
Agriculture, Industry &
Rural Development
4. Centre for 2012 Karnataka Life Services, Healthcare, 100+ Cisgen
Cellular And Ag- riculture, Pharma, Biotech,
Molecular Biopharma, Diagnostics, Sea6energy
Platforms And Medtech
(C-CAMP)*
5. Centre for En- 1979 Gujarat & Industry, IT, Textile, Jewellery, 200+ RBT Wires,
trepreneurship Tamil Nadu Environment/Social Welfare Bhagirath
Development Solar Systems
(CED)
6. Centre for En- 2003 Hyderabad CED Conducts EDP, 160 Micro, N/A
trepreneuship REDP, PMRY, WEDP, Small,
and Develop- EAC’s, TOT’s, Women
ment by ALEAP Agri-Clinic And Agri-Business Entrepre-
Development Programmes neurs
7. CET - TBI 2009 Kerala Green Technology N/A N/A
8. Center for 2000 Goa ICT, Food Processing, 16+ Food Buzz,
Incubation and Cleantech Garage Guy
Business Accel-
eration (CIBA)
9. CIIE IIM-A* 2007 Ahmedabad ICT, Cleantech And Social, Big 500+ Travelyaari,
Pune Data, Cloud, Payments, And Innoz,
Fintech Thrillophilia
10. Coimbatore 2014 Kumaraguru Electronics (Iot) And 1000+ Plasmatech,
Innovation and College of Technology Services Incubated, Skaas
Business Incu- Technology (Industrial/Engineering Mentored,
bator (KCT) Design, Automation) Boot
camped
11. Composites 2008 Bengaluru Composites Based On Coir, N/A N/A
Technology Bamboo, Jute
Park
Till Date Incubated
12. DA-IICT 2011 Gandhinagar ICT 6 Alma Connect
Incubator Solutions
Pvt. Ltd,
PlayPower
Labs India
Pvt. Ltd.
13. DLabs Incuba- 2013 Hyderabad Human-Centered Design, 20+ Gruhaa, Millet
tor Design Thinking Bowl
14. eHealth TBI 2008 Bengaluru Biopharma, Medical Devices, 40 N/A
PES University- And Healthcare
South Campus
15. Foundation For 1992 Delhi Science And Engineering 90+ EkamEco
Innovation And Solutions Pvt.
Technology Ltd., Faros
Transfer, IIT-D Technologies
16. Global 2010 Bengaluru Ecommerce 40+ MineWhat,
INcubation Carbon Clean
SERVices Solutions
(GINSERV) Private
Limited
17. GNEC-STEP 1987 Ludhiana Mechanical And IT N/A N/A
18. IAN Incubator 2010 Delhi Sector-Agnostic 60 Mukunda
Foods, India
College
Search,
Senisibol
19. IIM Calcutta 2014 West Bengal Social Enterprises, MSME’s 10+ Doctors for
Innovation Park you, Edwell
solutions,
Utopia
20. IIT Hyderabad 2007 Hyderabad IT, Big Data, Cloud 10+ Cloudgust,
Incubator Technology, GIS, Healthcare, The Atlanta
Events Foundation,
ScribLeaf
21. IIT Madras 2013 Chennai Technology And Knowledge- 500+ Airwood,
Incubation Cell Based Ventures Neomotion
(IITMIC)
22. IIIT-H 2012 Hyderabad Ai, AR/VR, Gaming 13 Ziffy,
Foundation* EBHASHA,
Nanohealth,
tourity
23. IIT Gandhinagar 2012 Gandhinagar High Growth Technology 8+ Cubeit, Tinker
Incubator Companies That Generate Tank, 4DEA
Commercial And Social
Impact
Till Date Incubated
24. IITG- 2009 Guwahati Biotechnology, 20+ Xeality IT
Technology Pharmaceutical, Information Technologies
Incubation Technology, Polymer Yantrabot
Centre* Products, Fruit Processing, Technologies
Herbal Medicines, Electrical Blynq
Appliances, Metal Utensils/ Technologies
Accessories, Agriculture Quantsolar
Implements, Cane & Bamboo Technologies
Products, Engineering
Industries, Product
Development, Testing
& Trials, Test Marketing,
Mentoring
25. Incube Ven- 2010 Ahmedabad Healthcare Deliveries, Clean 15+ N/A
tures Energy, Sustainable Rural
Business
26. Indavest 2007 Bengaluru E-Commerce, Mobile 10+ Vyomo,
Applications, Customised General
Gifting And Branding Sentiment
Solutions, Software Products
27. Innovation 2015 Gandhinagar New And Renewable 20+ PowerTree,
& Incubation Energy, Oil & Gas, Yobo
Centre Agricultural, Healthcare
& Pharmaceuticals,
Transportation, Computer
Technology, Information
Technology, Chemical,
Education, Material Science,
Civil & Infrastructure,
Ecommerce, Art, Automobile
Technology, Aerospace
Technology, Communication,
And Electronics.
28. iCreate 2012 Ahmedabad Information Technology, 17 Bioways India,
(International Electronics, Biotechnology, Purple Docs,
Centre for Nano-Technology, Robotics, Hubilo, Alma
Entrepreneur- Non-Conventional Energy Shines
ship and – Green, Bio-Medical
Technology) Equipment & Devices, Agro
&
Food Processing
29. JSSSTE-STEP 2000 Noida AI, Edtech, Electronics-IOT, 50+ Unify Cloud,
Fintech, Healthcare Logistics, Zolt, RailYatri
NLP, Security, Travel,
Voicetech
30. Kerala Startup 2006 Trivandrum IT, Electronics, Bioinformatics, 220 Mobme,
Mission (KSUM) And E-Learning Innoz,
(formerly Waybeo
Technopark
Technology
Business
Incubator)
Till Date Incubated
31. Khosla Labs 2012 Bengaluru Mobile Payment & N/A N/A
Banking, Retail Efficiency,
Healthcare Delivery, And
Big Data Analytics
32. Life Science 2006 Hyderabad Pharmaceutical And 50+ Biomax Life
Incubator at IKP Biotechnology Sciences,
Knowledge Park i-Trace
Nanotech
Pvt. Ltd.,
Magellan Life
Sciences™
Pvt. Ltd.
33. Malviya Centre 2008 Varanasi Firms That Can Create 10 Art Eye
for Innovation Jobs, Commercialise New Solutions,
Incubation & Technologies, And Strengthen Edulution
Entrepreneur- The National Economy
ship, IIT BHU
34. Manipal 2010 Manipal Information Technology, 10+ Manipal
University Renewable Energy And Printronics
Technology Energy Conservation System, Pvt. Ltd,
Business MEMS/Nanotechnology The Smart
Incubator Techies Pvt.
Ltd., Fracktal
Works Pvt.
Ltd
35. MICA – Incu- 2010 Gujarat Communication Service 30+ Shabda Nagri,
bator Technologies, Communication Don’t Scratch
Product Technologies, Your Head
Communication Equipment,
Applications Tools For
Communication Business
36. NASSCOM 2013 Bengaluru, Sector-Agnostic 200+ Headway,
10,000 Noida, Bigtrade,
Startups Gurugram, Cashfree,
Warehouse Kolkata, Navi Tovico
Mumbai,
Chennai,
Hyderabad,
Pune, Kochi,
and Vizag
37. National Centre 2010 Mumbai Aerospace And Related 5 N/A
for Aerospace Sectors
Innovation and
Research
38. NDBI (NID 2004 Ahmedabad, Young, Design-Focused 10+ Dhama
Incu- Bengaluru, Entrepreneurs Apparel
bator) Gandhinagar Innovations
Pvt. Ltd,
Robots Alive
Consulting
Pvt. Ltd
Till Date Incubated
39. NITK-Science 1994 Mangalore Information Technology, 40 N/A
Technology En- Electronics & Robotics,
trepreneurship Multi-Disciplinary Technology
Park Integration, Engineering
Design, And Consultancy
40. NIT TREC-STEP 2004 NIT Campus, Cleantech, IT, Engineering, 20+ Pure Tech,
Tiruchirapalli Biotech Green
Connect
41. NSRCEL, IIM 2002 Bengaluru Sector-Agnostic 10 Amagi,
Bangalore Just books,
Milaap,
Zoojoobe,
Gamatics
42. PadUp Ventures 2016 NCR Technology And Mobile 10 MYTAT.
Startups in, Neuron,
Homestat.in
43. Periyar Tech- 2006 Tamil Nadu Herbal, Health Products, N/A N/A
nology Business Biotechnology, Food
Incubator* Processing, And Agro
Ventures
44. Progress Soft- 2015 Hyderabad Programme Software, IT 20+ CashHere,
ware’s Incuba- Hello Tractor
tor
45. PSG-STEP 1998 Coimbatore ICT, Electronics, And 36 Cloud Assert
Mechanical India, LifeTex
46. Sardar Patel 2015 Mumbai Education, Health, Energy, 15+ Mime360,
Technology Livelihood And Smart Genecorp,
Business Incu- City Technologies, IOT, Quirk House
bator* Ecommerce , Innovative SaaS,
Big Data, Cloud Computing,
Artificial Intelligence, Hybrid
Business Models With
Technology At Its Core,
Social Startups, Women-Led
Startups
47. Sathyabama 2013 Tamil Nadu Marine, Biotechnology, 21 N/A
University-TBI Engineering And Tech, Waste
Management
48. Rural 2006 Tamil Nadu Rural/Underserved Societal 42 Desicrew,
Technology Segments, Leveraging ICT MobilTrain,
and Business Edutor,
Incubator Invention
(RTBI)* Labs
49. Science And 1989 Kharagpur Technological Ideas Or 20+ Ikure Techsoft
Technology En- Technologies Under Pvt.Ltd.
trepreneurship Development To Enable Them
Park To Reach The Marketplace
50. Science & Tech- 1994 Pune IT & Innovative Technologies 17 Omni Bridge
nology Park, System Pvt.
University of Ltd, Probity
Pune Soft Pvt. Ltd.
Till Date Incubated
51. Seedfarm 2006 Mumbai Consumer Internet, 20+ MyDentist,
Ecommerce, Sports, Chumbak,
Education, Healthcare, Carwale
Financial Services, Analytics,
Services And Online Ticketing
52. SIDBI 2000 Kanpur Technology Related 50+ Aarsh
Innovation & Ventures management
Incubation solutions,
Centre, IIT Messiah Labs
Kanpur
53. Shriram Shriram Plastics And Rubbers, N/A N/A
Institute for Institute for Speciality Chemicals And
Industrial Industrial Formulations, Waste
Research Research, Management
Delhi
54. SMVDU TBIC 2015 Jammu and Biotechnology (Microbial, 7 N/A
Kashmir Plant, Medical Genetics And
Diagnostics), Engineering
(Electronics, Robotics,
Ecommerce, GSM/GPRS
Based Technology, Alternative
Energy Management, And
Business Development.
55. Society For 2004 Mumbai Sector-Agnostic 82 Sedemac
Innovation and Mechatronics,
Entrepreneur- Seclore
ship, (SINE) Technology,
IdeaForge
56. Society for 2008 Karnal Dairy And Food Processing, 20+ Agati
Innovation & Feed Technology, Dairy Healthcare
Entrepreneur- Farming, Fish Farming, Pvt. Ltd.,
ship in Dairying Apiculture & Honey Vikrant Pawa
(SINED) Processing, Biofertilisers, Enterprises
Technology Biopesticides & Panchgavya
Business Products Based On Dung
Incubator* And Urine
57. Startup Oasis 2015 Rajasthan AI, IoT, Blockchain, 160 Seva Service,
Rajasthan* Edtech, Cleantech, ICT House Up
58. Startup Village 2012 Kochi Sector-Agnostic 69 Finrobotics
(Neyya),
Exploride,
iTraveller,
Mindhelix
(Rico)
59. STEP-Birla 1987 Ranchi Mechanical Engineering N/A N/A
Institute
of
Technology
60. STEP, Thapar 2004 Patiala Agri Bio-Technology, Bio- 25 N/A
University* Fertiliser, Food Biotech,
Tissue Culture
Till Date Incubated
61. Tagore Centre 2013 West Bengal Sector-Agnostic 20+ EWT Solar,
for Green Nayan Eye
Technology Centre
Business
Incubation
62. TBI, BITS Pilani 2005 Pilani Embedded Systems and VLSI 10+ redBus
Design
63. TBI, Centre for 2002 Chennai Biotechnology, Bioprocess 15 N/A
Biotechnology, Technology, Molecular
Anna Biology, Cell Biology,
University Immunology & Genetic
Engineering
64. TBI, Graphic 2014 Uttarakhand Biotechnology, IT, 10+ N/A Tele ICU
Era University, Environment, Ecology Services(P)
Dehradun Ltd., Mash
Virtual Pvt
Ltd.
65. TBI, IIT-D 2000 Delhi Technology, Research, 20+ ekam, Inkilab
Industry Technologies,
Planin
66. Technology 2008 West Bengal ICT And Electronics, Wireless 100 Abzooba
Incubation and Communication, Image India Infotech,
Entrepreneur- Processing, And Medical Ikure
ship Training Techsoft
Society (TIETS)
67. TBI, KIIT 2008 Bhubanesh- Agriculture, IoT, Cleantech, 30+ Roboticwares
University* war Healthcare, Water, Energy Pvt. Ltd., Hello
doctor24x7
Pvt. Ltd.
68. TBI, NIT Calicut 2004 Calicut Technology, Knowledge 30+ Neologic,
Eden
Technologies,
DE 3.2
69. TBI for 2008 Kerala Medical Devices, Biomaterials, 10+ ellipsor,
Medical Devices Healthcare indriyam
& Biomaterials
70. T-HUB* 2015 Hyderabad Sector-Agnostic 70+ LifeCircle,
PayMatrix
71. TBI, University 2006 Chennai Health-Related Herbal And N/A N/A
of Madras Biotech Industries
72. TBI, VIT Vellore 2003 Vellore Automotive Engineering, 50+ Chalkstudio,
Biotechnology, ICT, and Finix
Manufacturing
73. UnLtd 2013 Hyderabad Social Welfare 20+ N/A
Hyderabad
74. Venture Center 2006 Pune Materials, Chemicals And 50+ Antfarm,
Biological Sciences & Divish
Engineering Mobility
Till Date Incubated
75. Venture Studio 2011 Ahmedabad Innovation That Accelerates 20+ OoWomaniya
Regional Economic (a product
Development And Creates by
A National And Global Impetus
Impact Wellness),
cruxbot,
Wockito
76. Villgro 2001 Chennai Social Enterprises 100+ Onebreathe,
Innovations Skillveri
Foundation
77. Wadhwani 2008 Hyderabad Technology 20+ Orka
Centre For En-
trepreneurship
Development
78. Zone Startups 2015 Mumbai Sector-Agnostic 100+ Areysun,
India shieldsquare,
Neuron
79. (a-IDEA) 2014 Telanaga Agriculture And Allied Sectors 50+ Agrowbook,
Association Agmart
for Innovation
Development of
Entrepreneur-
ship in
Agriculture*
80. Centre for 2011 Telangana Gaming, Machine Learning, 80+ Thanos,
Innovation and IOT, Medtech, Deeptech indiryn
Entrepreneur-
ship, IIIT-H*
81. Development of 2011 Tamil Nadu GPS And ICT-Based Systems 11 N/A
Entrepreneurs
Through
Incubation
(DETI@ACE)
82. DKTE 2009 Pune Biotechnology, Ayurveda, N/A N/A
Technology Biomedicine, Renewable
Business Energy, Environment, IT,
Incubator Engineering And Electronic
Sectors, Along With Textile &
Garment Technology
83. Ekta Incubation 2007 West Bengal Biotech And IT, Bio- 20+ XESP
Center, Informatics, Computer Embedded
Maulana Kalam Sciences, And Material Solutions,
Azad University Sciences TechnoCratz
of Technology
84. Entrepreneur- 2012 Rajasthan Electronics And ICT N/A N/A
ship
Development
Cell (EDC)
85. Golden Jublee 2016 Tamil Nadu Biotechnology And Allied 10 Greenwrap,
Women Biotech Areas Adiuvo
Park Diagnostics
86. HBTI-STEP 1987 UP Paints, Chemical, And IT N/A N/A
Till Date Incubated
87. Vel Tech 2010 Tamil Nadu E-Waste, Bio-Waste, Plastic 100+ E-Soft,
Technology Waste Management, 3D Enmart, Life
Incubator Printing, Embedded Systems/ Hack, N-
VLSI, MAV/ Robotics, Technologies
Automobile, Renewable
Energy And IT/ITES.
88. Hindustan 2015 Tamil Nadu Technology 8 N/A
College of
Engineering
and Technology
89. Incubation 2015 Patna ESDM With Focus On N/A N/A
Centre, Medical Electronics
IIT- Patna
90. Agri-Business 2003 Hyderabad Dairy Farming, Organic 52+ Higene Seeds,
Incubator, Agriculture, Agri-Tech, Food IAC Agro
ICRISAT* Processing, Others Services
91. NIET 2014 Noida ICT & Bio-Technology 100 N/A
Technology
Business
Incubator
92. ROLTA 2014 Madhya Engineering N/A N/A
Innovation Pradesh
and Incubation
Centre
93. STEP-SJCE 1987 Mysore Electronics And IT N/A N/A
94. TBI, Krishnapath 2007 Ghaziabad Information Technology, 11 Vizortex R&D
Incubation Electronics, And Mechanical Pvt. Ltd.
Society Engineering
95. TBI, Tamil Nadu 2003 Tamil Nadu Electronics And ICT 12 Multiversal
Technologies
96. TIDES 2011 Uttarakhand Sector-Agnostic 15+ Log 9
Incubation Materials,
Centre MadGuy Labs,
The Indian Iris
97. TNAU 2011 Tamil Nadu Agriculture And Allied Areas 11 Ecolive
Technology Spirulina,
Business Madurai
Incubator Pandian
Appalam
98. MANAGE 2017 Hyderabad Agriculture And Allied 14 easyKRISHI,
Centre for Sectors Kultivate,
Innovation and Kamdenuvu
Agripreneurship
99. Trident Business 2015 Odisha Biotech, Internet Startups, N/A N/A
Incubator Engineering Industry
100 Society for 2004 Karnataka Bioinformatics, Image 18 azooka,
Innovation & Processing And Recognition, General
Development Materials, MEM’s, Organic Aeronautics,
(SID) Electronics, Early Detection lab2market
Of Diseases, Drug Design,
Mobility, & Renewable
Energy
Annexure 3
Startup Policies by Government of India to boost up Indian Startup Ecosystem
Startup India Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, which
aims to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and start-
ups in the country, to drive sustainable economic growth and
generate large-scale employment opportunities.
Through this initiative, the government aims to empower start-ups to

grow through innovation and design. The Startup India initiative is
based on the following three pillars:
• Simplification and handholding
• Funding support and incentives
• Industry-academia partnership and incubation
Atal Innovation Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) including Self-Employment and

Mission (AIM) Talent Utilization (SETU) is the Government of India’s endeavor to
promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Its
objective is to serve as a platform for the promotion of world
class innovation hubs, grand challenges, start-up businesses and
other self-employment activities, particularly in technology driven
areas. It has two core components:
• Entrepreneurship promotion through Self-Employment and Talent
Utilization (SETU)
• Innovation promotion: to provide a platform where innovative
ideas are generated
AIM provides a grant-in-aid of 10 crore INR to each Atal

Incubation Centre for a maximum of five years to cover the capital
and operational expenditure cost in running the centre
NewGen The government’s NewGen IEDC startup Program is implemented

Innovation and in educational institutions by National Science & Technology
Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB). A maximum of 20
Development new projects are supported in a year and the government provides
Centre (NewGen one-time, non-recurring financial assistance, up to a maximum of 25
IEDC) lakh INR to the institution for the establishment cost, furnishing of
cubicles for start-ups, purchase of PCs with printers, library books,
journals, laptop, multimedia projector, 3D printers etc.
Make In India The initiative has been created with an aim to transform India into a
global design and manufacturing center. The Make in India initiative
has made sure to replace the outdated and obsolete frameworks with
latest and user-friendly methods. The arrangement behind Make in
India was one
of the biggest embraced in late history. And in turn, this has helped in
procuring investments, fostering innovation, developing skills, protecting
intellectual property and building the best manufacturing infrastructure.
Biotechnology It carries out programmes to encourage strategic research and innovation
Industry Research in the biotech enterprises, and reduce the current gaps between
Assistance Council industry and academics. The initiative has facilitated several rapid
(BIRAC) developments
in medical technology and helped various biotech startups to
expand and build a good base for themselves. The programme is
backed by the Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi.
Trade-related The programme provides credit to the interested women with the
entrepreneurship help of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The women can
assistance and receive the support of registered NGOs in both accessing loan
development facilities, and receive counselling and training opportunities to
(TREAD) initiate the proposed undertakings.
Venture Capital Capital assistance will depend on the project cost, location and the
Finance Assistance promoter’s status. It will be in the form of interest-free venture
(VCA) capital assistance up to 50 lakh INR or 26% of the promoter’s
equity, whichever is lower. The scheme is promoted by Small
Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium
Pradhan Mantri The Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has started
Kaushal Vikas the programme PMKVY which aims to train the youngsters in order to
Yojana (PMKVY) inculcate industrial skills in them to enhance opportunities for
livelihood creation and employability. Training and Assessment fees are
completely financed by the Government under this scheme.
Support To Training The primary purpose of the scheme is to educate and train women
And Employment who don’t have access to formal skill education, particularly targeting
Programme For the rural sector. The programme provides knowledge and training in
Women (STEP) various
segments including agriculture, horticulture, food processing, handlooms,
traditional crafts like embroidery, travel and tourism, hospitality,
computer and IT services.
Aspire (MSME) Aspire has been launched by the Indian government to set up a
network of technology and, incubation centres, and to promote
start-ups for innovation and entrepreneurship in rural and agriculture-
based industry.
India Aspiration India Aspiration Fund (IAF) is a Fund of Funds, which would invest
Fund in Venture Capital Funds for meeting the equity requirements of
MSMEs, especially Startups.
Source: Startup India; Inc42; Yourstory; Indianweb2.com

Annexure 4
Key Agritech Investors in India
Source: NASSCOM, 2018b

(An organisation of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of
India) Rajendranagar, Hyderabad – 500 030, Telangana State, India
www.manage.gov.in

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Agritech Startups: The Ray of Hope in Indian Agriculture

Technical Report · July 2019

11 PUBLICATIONS 9 CITATIONS 58 PUBLICATIONS 132 CITATIONS

Professional attachment training View project

MANAGE Internship Programme View project

National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE)

About the Publication

Dr. Saravanan Raj

Smt. V. Usha Rani, IAS

Small Setup and Big Impact: Startups Changing the World……………………........................... 1

Defining a Startup: The Meaning………………………………………………………………......................... 2

Startups: Gateway to Innovations………………………………………………………………........................ 3

Development of a Startup: The Build Up……………………………………………………...................... 6

Startup Funding: Putting the Fuel in the Startup Engine………………………….......................... 7

Sources of Startup Funding: The Fuel………………………………………………………......................... 13

Startup Ecosystem: Cultivating Ideas………………………………………………………........................... 14

Global Startup Ecosystem………………………………………………………………………….......................... 16

Indian Startup Ecosystem: Announcing Its Enormity to the World…………........................... 20

AgriTech Startups: Redefining Indian Agriculture through Technology Solution............ 34

Research Methodology .......................................................................................................................................... 47

Results and Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………................................. 49

Identification of prevalent Agritech sub-sectors in Indian Startup Ecosystem ........................ 49

Selective Case Studies .................................................................................................................................... 52

Startup Policy and Implementation by Central and State Governments to boost 93

Annexures .................................................................................................................................................................... 105

Table no. Title Page no.

2. Sources of startup funding 13

4. Key trends and growth drivers of the tech startup hubs 25

5. Growth of unicorn startups in India 28

7. Scope of technology intervention in agricultural value chain 36

8. Key areas for startups in agricultural activities 37

9. Some of the key Accelerators and Incubators for agritech sector in 40

Fig. no. Title Page no.

2. Startup financing cycle 7

3. Distribution of startups worldwide in 2018, by Industry 17

4. Distribution of Startups in Indian Ecosystem 2018, By Industry 23

5. Distribution of Startups in Indian Ecosystem 2018, by Advanced 23

7. YoY Deals and Amount of Indian Startup Funding 26

8. Agritech startup opportunities in Indian agriculture 35

9. Distribution of Agritech startups according to investor funding 38

11. Key Indian States Focusing on Agritech Startups 39

Small Setup and Big Impact: Startups Changing the World

Defining a Startup: The Meaning

(Source: Anonymous, 2017)

Startups: Gateway to Innovations

It is to be noticed that these independent startups are performing well in innovating

Fig. 1: Startups constantly promoting Innovation

Table 1: Key features of development stages of startup

Stages Name Key Features of Development

Source: Aggarwal, 2015; Segal, 2016; Yasuda, 2016; Anonymous, 2018c.

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a development technique in which a new product or

(Source: Aggarwal, 2015)

Startup Funding: Putting the Fuel in the Startup Engine

(Source: Rowley, 2019)

PRE-SEED STAGE (Early stage, Pre-product)

(Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/death-valley-curve.asp https://www.forbes.com/

SEED STAGE (Early stage, Immature product)

up. (Source: Rowley,