Agri-tech startup Gramophone raises USD 3.5 million in funding from Info Edge, Raveen Sastry (Co-founder of Myntra.com), Asha Impact and Better Capital.
Info Edge is an existing investor in Gramophone, while Asha Impact is a platform founded by Vikram Gandhi (former Credit Suisse executive) and Pramod Bhasin (former President and CEO of Genpact), a statement said.
The startup is rapidly scaling up its operations and will use the funds to expand across other Indian states.
Founded in 2016, Gramophone provides actionable agronomic insights coupled with last-mile delivery of agriculture inputs to farmers through a smartphone app and a call centre.
The startup’s last-mile delivery model has helped them serve over 2.5 lakh farmers in the remotest villages across central India.
“We are excited to see how farmers are adopting newer opportunities to maximize their income. This investment will enable us to invest aggressively on product, data science and scale operations across geographies,” Gramophone co-founder and CEO Tauseef Khan said.
In a BSE filing, Info Edge said it owned about 37.21 percent of Agstack Technologies (Gramophone) as of June 30, 2019.
“Gramophone has signed a definitive agreement to raise funds from a couple of other investors, consequent to which the company’s shareholding in Gramophone stands reduced to about 33.21 percent. The company has not participated in this round of fundraising by Gramophone,” the filing added.
Khan clarified that Info Edge (India), in the first closing earlier this year, had invested through its wholly-owned subsidiary about Rs 14 crore in Gramophone.
“The remaining amount of Rs 10 crore has been received from our other investors, in the second closing of the same round,” he added.