Full-stack Agritech platform DeHaat raises US$115 million in series D round

New Delhi, India -27 October 2021- DeHaat, thetechnology-based platform offering end-to-end agricultural services to farmers in India,today announced it has raised US$115 million in Series D funding, led by Belgium based investment firm Sofina and Lightrock India. Temasek co-invested in the round, with participation from existing investors Prosus Ventures, RTP Global, Sequoia Capital India and FMO.Dexter Capital and Vertices Partners were the advisors of this funding round.

Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO DeHaat,said, "We at DeHaat are on a mission of building the world's largest Agritech platform. We have raised US$ 157 million from marquee investors in the last 30 months and our team has grown to a brigade of 850+ professionals with deep expertise in Growth & Strategy, Supply chain, Technology & Agricultural science. The last 7 months have been phenomenal with 5x growth for DeHaat. Hence we are now well poised to replicate the success in all major agriculture clusters of India in the next 12-15 months."

Based in Gurgaon and Patna and founded in 2012 by IIT, IIM & NIT alumni Amrendra Singh, Shyam Sundar, Adarsh Srivastav & Shashank Kumar, DeHaat is a technology-based business to farmers (B2F) platform that offers full-stack agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high-quality agricultural inputs, customised farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages for selling their produce.

With an aim to drive efficiency & transparency in this US$ 350 billion industry, DeHaat has been building a digitised network of farmers as well as last-mile service providers & providing direct access to farmers through its physical as well as a digital platform.

DeHaat has currently built a rural retail network of more than 3,000 DeHaat microentrepreneurs for last-mile delivery as well as aggregation, serving more than 650,000 farmers located across Bihar, UP, Jharkhand & Odisha. DeHaat has now started expanding to new geographies like MP & Rajasthan with a complete 360 degree set of Agri offerings for farmers.

As per the company, DeHaat has a strong commitment to continue investing in the technology. Earlier this year, it acquired Farm Guide - a SaaS-based platform to provide satellite-based insights & advisory to farmers. The current tech team has grown to 120, building unique AI/ML-based solutions related to crop advisory, last-mile supply chain traceability & B2B SaaS agritech platform for input sellers as well as output buyers.

Yana Kachurina,Principal, Sofinasaid, "Through our due diligence, we became convinced that DeHaat is bringing substantial value-add to the farming community in India. The uniqueness of its full-stack approach combined with the "phygital" go-to-market strategy further reaffirmed our view that the company is on track to become a significant player in the farming industry in India."Vaidhehi Ravindran, Partner at LightrockIndiasaid,"We have been following DeHaat's progress through the years and are impressed with their steep growth trajectory combined with a strong network of micro-entrepreneurs. Through innovative social engineering and tech-led execution, DeHaat has built the largest first-mile network for farmers and is well-positioned to help transform agriculture by improving yields and farmer income. "

DeHaat has emerged as the largest Indian agritech player with its unique full-stack approach while connecting all types of agribusinesses (input sellers, output buyers, cattle feed manufacturers, financial institutions, warehousing companies) to the farming community. There are more than 850 unique agribusiness entities currently active on the platform, which are getting last-mile access through the DeHaat platform in a transparent and efficient manner. The company has raised this round within nine months of the last round and has completed two strategic acquisitions so far for inorganic growth. Institutional investors Omnivore Partners and Pi Capital (family fund of Narrottam Shekhsaria Group) who invested in the first institutional round in 2019 have exited partially in the current round.

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About DeHaat

DeHaat is India's homegrown, largest full-stack agritech company. It uses AI-enabled technologies in revolutionizing supply-chain, production efficiencies in the farming sector. Nurturing a community of over 650,000 farmers, DeHaat offers services ranging from distribution of high-quality agricultural inputs, customized farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages to sell their produce. For more information:www.agrevolution.in

About Sofina:

Sofina is a European, family-controlled, investment company listed on Euronext Brussels (~12Bn$ AUM). Sofina invests from a permanent pool of capital, both directly as a growth investor and indirectly through VC private equity funds. Sofina invests globally and focuses on four key sectors: consumer & retail, digital, healthcare and education. India is an important market for Sofina which invested in more than 20 companies in the last decade.

About Lightrock:

Lightrock India, formerly Aspada, invests in transformative, technology-led industry leaders of tomorrow in themes and sectors with high social impact potential. With a thematic platform approach to investing stemming from the belief that every firm operates not in isolation but through a set of symbiotic relationships with players across the value chain in their sector. Lightrock India invests in sectors across Food and Agri, logistics and mobility, education, healthcare and financial services. Portfolio includes companies such as Vivriti, Aye Finance, Capital Float, Waycool, Porter, Arya, Dunzo, Pharmeasy, Kauvery, Amp energy, Cuemath and Eupheus.

Lightrockis LGT group's global impact investing platform that consolidates all of its impact investing activities worldwide. Globally, Lightrock invests in companies in Europe, India, Latin America, and Africa, that pursue scalable and technology-driven business models around three key impact themes that are central to building a better tomorrow: people, planet, and productivity. Global portfolio includes Lilium, Dataiku, Messagebird, Neo4j, Infarm, and CMR in Europe; DrConsulta, CargoX, Creditas and Konfio in LatAm, and Mkopa and Copia in Africa

For more information, please visitLightrock India's website

About Temasek:

Temasek is a global investment company with a net portfolio value of S$381bn (US$283b) as of 31 March 2021. Headquartered in Singapore, it has 13 offices in 9 countries around the world. The Temasek Charter defines Temasek's three roles as an Investor, Institution and Steward, which shape its ethos to do well, do right, and do good. As a provider of catalytic capital, it seeks to enable solutions to key global challenges. With sustainability at the core of all Temasek does, it actively seeks sustainable solutions to address present and future challenges, as it captures investible opportunities to bring about a sustainable future for all. For more information on Temasek, please visitwww.temasek.com.sg

About RTP Global:

RTP Global is a VC firm with a strong track record of investing in technology. Originally founded as ru-Net in 2000 in Russia, RTP Global has invested in 90 companies founded in more than 10 countries across U.S., Europe, India and South-East Asia. Five early-stage investments became multi-billion public companies: Yandex, EPAM, Delivery Hero, RingCentral, and Datadog. Recently RTP has closed its USD 650 mn fund to invest in tech-driven business models across the globe and a few of their recent Indian portfolio companies are Khatabook, Cred.

About Sequoia Capital India:

Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies, from an idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India operates in Southeast Asia and India where we actively partner with founders from a wide range of companies, across categories, including BYJUs, Carousell, Druva, Gojek, OYO Rooms, Tokopedia, Truecaller, Zilingo, Zomato and more.

We spur founders to push the boundaries of what's possible. In partnering with Sequoia, start-ups benefit from 48 years of tribal knowledge and lessons learned working with companies like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Dropbox, Google, LinkedIn, and Stripe early on.

From the beginning, non-profits have been the backbone of our LP base, which means founders' accomplishments make a meaningful difference. The majority of our profits are returned to great causes, like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT. For more information on Sequoia's work in India and SE Asia,visit sequoiacap.com/india

About FMO:

FMO is the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. As a leading impact investor, FMO supports sustainable private sector growth in developing countries and emerging markets by investing in ambitious projects and entrepreneurs. FMO believes that a strong private sector leads to economic and social development and has a 50-year proven track record of empowering people to employ their skills and improve their quality of life. FMO focuses on three sectors that have high development impact: financial institutions, energy, and agribusiness, food & water. With a committed portfolio of EUR 10.4 billion spanning over 83 countries, FMO is one of the larger bilateral private sector developments banks globally. For more information: please visitwww.fmo.nl

About Omnivore:

Omnivore is a venture capital firm, based in India, which funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. For further information on Omnivore, please visit:http://omnivore.vc

About AgFunder:

AgFunder is an online venture capital platform that invests in agrifood tech startups globally. For further information on AgFunder, please visit:https://agfunder.com