FarMart raises $10M led by Matrix Partners India

With more than 25x growth within the last 6 months, the SaaS-led B2B food supply platform now plans to double down to establish itself as the largest food supply platform in the country by 2022.

21st October, 2021. New Delhi, India: FarMart, a SaaS-led food supply platform, announced a $10M funding round led by Matrix Partners India, with participation from Innoven Capital and existing investors Omidyar Network India, Avaana Capital, and 500 Startups. Angel investors participating in the round include Amit Lakhotia (Founder, Park+), Jitendra Gupta (Founder & CEO, Jupiter), KP Balaraj (Ex-founder, WestBridge Capital and Sequoia Capital India), OfBusiness Founder's Fund, Revant Bhate and Dhyanesh Shah (Co-founders, Mosaic Wellness) amongst other marquee angel investors.

The funds raised will be used to expand FarMart's distribution network across the country, scale product capabilities as well as grow the team. The round also provides an exit for its early investors Indian Angel Network and LetsVenture. FarMart's fundraising announcement comes soon after its $2.4M Pre-Series A funding in June 2021.

Co-founded by childhood friends, Alekh Sanghera and Mehtab Singh Hans, FarMart addresses the highly fragmented $300B+ food supply market in India. FarMart's tech platform enables food businesses to source quality produce in large quantities directly from the farmgate at cheaper pricing and a faster turn-around-time.

FarMart's model is centered around agri-input retailers and solves for key challenges faced by the retailer community. First, FarMart provides a micro-SaaS platform that enables retailers to digitize their workflow, increase sales to farmers and conduct their existing business in a more efficient manner. Second, it helps retailers procure commodities from farmers and sell directly to large enterprises through the FarMart platform which opens up a completely new source of revenue for them. FarMart's network of retailers provides a unique and extremely vast distribution power in the form of a "one-stop-hub' at the farmgate and leads to significant benefits for the farmers as well in the form of 15% higher realizations, reduced transportation costs, and reliable partners for both input and output linkage.

Since launching the market linkage platform 6 months back, the company has scaled its network to over 15,000 active agri-input retailers and 750,000 farmers who have shipped over 30,000+ tonnes of produce on the FarMart platform. Today, its 100+ B2B buyers include ITC, Olam, and Cargill among others. The company's SaaS enabled asset-light model along with low working capital has helped them achieve this exponential growth in an extremely capital efficient manner.

Alekh Sanghera, Co-founder, FarMart said, "This fundraise is a true reflection of the vision we have at FarMart, which is to build an operating system for the agribusiness community in India, starting with agri-retailers who are at the core of our business. Our remarkable growth over the past few months is testament to our thesis of building a product-first and an asset-light business, driven by our amazing team.'

Mehtab Singh Hans, Co-founder, FarMart said, "Riding on the wave of liberalization of agri-markets, we are uniquely positioned to build a deep and liquid delivery-spot market for agri-commodities. Farmers across the country would have direct access to formal markets, selling any type of commodity within a vicinity of 5-7km from their farms.'

Madhav Tandan, Director, Omidyar Network India commented, "We are excited to continue supporting FarMart on their mission to create an innovative asset-light, tech-led model built to help the company with its strategy of helping agri-retailers and farmers increase their incomes. In less than a year, the company has shown an impressive growth in its merchant base and revenue while also working towards creating meaningful lives for the farmers and agri-input retailers they work with.'

Shruti Srivastava, Principal, Avaana Capital, added, "Digitization of agricultural value chains has the potential to improve access to inputs for farmers and enhance market access and realizations for output. FarMart's approach of leveraging existing stakeholders in the value chain allows them to scale this digitization rapidly in a capital efficient manner. The company's progress has been a strong validation of this approach and we continue to be bullish on the team's ability to build a game-changing business here.'

Sudipto Sannigrahi, Vice President, Matrix India commented, "We are big believers of Alekh & Mehtab's vision of creating a capital-efficient & seamless food distribution network for the agri-retailer & farmer community. FarMart's tech-led scalable model makes them well-positioned to disrupt the $300B+ Agriculture market and their extremely strong growth over the last 6 months is a testament to their model and execution. We're excited to be a part of this disruptive journey with the FarMart team!"

About FarMart:
FarMart is India's first micro-SaaS platform for food supply. Its mobile app allows agri-retailers to serve their farmers better by providing access to information, market linkages and input. Large food businesses leverage FarMart's technology and its vast distribution network to source quality produce directly from the farmers at reasonable prices. FarMart hopes to make food distribution capital efficient, transparent and financially rewarding for the agribusiness community across India. For more about FarMart, visit www.farmart.co

About Matrix Partners India:
Matrix Partners India is an investment firm with approximately $1 billion under management. Founded in 2006, the firm invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer and enterprise market at the seed, early, and early growth stages. Matrix India has invested in several market-leading companies such as Ola (mobility), Razorpay (payments), OfBusiness (credit led B2B marketplace), Five Star Business Finance (SME lending), Ola Electric (electric vehicles), Stanza Living (tech-enabled student housing platform), OneCard (mobile-first credit card), Country Delight (D2C dairy & fresh foods brand), DealShare (social commerce platform), Captain Fresh (seafood marketplace), Bijnis (B2B platform for factories), Vegrow (tech platform for farmers), Mswipe (mobile POS), and Zupee (leading skill-based gaming app) among others. Matrix India has advisory offices in Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai. Matrix Partners has a global network of funds investing in the US, China, and India, with approximately $5 billion under management. Further information is available at www.matrixpartners.in. To know more about our investment philosophy & ideologies, check out the #MatrixMoments podcast series.