KissanPro won the Best Agritech Startup for industry partnership award…

We work on a phygital model, while we use technology to build efficiency at every level – Ravi Dasoundhi ,Founder and CEO, “KissanPro”

Kissanpro won the “Agritech startup for Industry partnership” award  in the 5^th edition of the prestigious “FICCI Summit and Awards for Agri Startups”, Award ceremony was held in Federation house, New Delhi and  award winners were  felicitated by Shri Kailash Choudhary the hone’ble Minister of State, Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, along with various FICCI, Govt and Industry delegates.

About FICCI AgritechStarupAward : FICCI believes that Start‐ups will be the backbone of New India. The aspiring entrepreneurs is not leaving any stone unturned and have made significant impact across all segments of the Agriculture sector. With so much potential in the Agriculture sector, these Agri start‐ups need to be suitably identified, supported and handheld, so as to mainstream them for the long run. Under the vision of Agri Startup Task Force, FICCI thrives to “Develop India as a hub of Agri innovation by leveraging

domestic and global opportunities, driving Industry – start up partnership and enabling policy initiatives for adoption of innovations in the agriculture and allied sector”.

With objective to sensitize, motivate and address the issues that Agri startups face, so that they innovatively solve the problems faced by the Indian and global agriculture across the value chain, FICCI is organizing 5th edition of “FICCI Summit and Awards for Agri Startups” on 1-2 November 2022. During the 5th edition, FICCI once again aims to accentuate the innovations taking place specifically in the agriculture sector and felicitate awards to the start-ups for their impactful innovations. The best Agri Startup among the selected ones got felicitated with awards and acknowledged at FICCI’s Agri Startup Summit on 2nd November 2022 which was one of the most awaited congregations of leadership from Government and Industry. PwC is the knowledge partner in the initiative.

During Event key Points discussed By Minster Shri Kailash Choudhary

During the event Shri Kailash Choudhary the hone’ble Minister of State, Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, complemented the work done by all agritech startups and congratulated all winners, He also discussed the growing agritech startups ecosystem in India and how we can become the world leaders and world suppliers across key crop categories, he stressed upon need of growing Millets production and demand both and how startups can work together with government in achieving the desired objective.

Under the  Vision of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi to boost and support Indian agritech startups he discussed about setting up a separate division for startups within agriculture ministry and there would a joint secretary dedicated to agritech startups .

To support further he mentioned a 500 crore acceleration fund for agritech startups.

Ravi Dasoundhi the Founder and CEO’s statement :

This indeed is a very prestigious award and we are very happy that our efforts and impact created on the ground is been noticed and recognized , this recognition along with various video recordings of FPO CEOs and farmers on how we have made life simple for them and improved profitability overall is the real testimony of all the hard work the entire team has been putting in to create real value for a large base of farmers, such recognition will certainly motivate the entire team to keep working hard on the ground every day with the same level of passion and zeal to bring the transformation we all aspire to see in farmers life and in the entire ecoystem.  

We work on a phygital model, while we use technology to build efficiency at every level, we manage end to end execution and operation to have the right control and deliver what we promise to a Farmer as well as to various institutional buyers.

Becoming self sustainable and still growing profitably is the path we following, and we are very close to achieve net zero burn target, while we understand that we are small and at this scale becoming net zero burn might not sound very exciting however its important for us as this sets the business fundamentals right, we certainly would look for raising funds with some strategic investors at the right time, Wherein funds mostly would be invested on Tech, capacity building and on the ground infrastructure for key expansion linked projects, and to have a command over right supplies, building right warehousing, processing and packaging capacity  and creating ecosystem for farm to retail/ Farm to factory.

By doing these by default wecreating a win win model for farmer as well as for institutional buyers and also with effective use of data and science creating a right balance between supply and demand.

We closely working with Various Govt Agriculture and Horticulture offices as well as with Nabard and under process of finalizing some projects like creating excellence centers, precision farming, demand based crop scheduling etcand  we do play a role of catalyst in implementing the govt agri initiatives we truly believe in.

About Kissanpro :

KissanPro started its journey in 2020 with the mission of adding efficiency at every stage of agriculture with help of data science, the right processes,  tools, and technology, thus reducing the overall cost of production, growing per acre productivity and making the best and nearest direct market available for farmers to get the best price for farmer and buyers both and also reduce post-harvest losses.

While it provides a full stack solution to farmers/ FPOs , its prime work area amongst all is setting up a very efficient Farm to factory/ Farm to the retail model of the supply chain.

Currently, it serves all leading brands of India across the crop categories, to name Reliance, Swiggy, Big Basket, Metro Cash and Carry, and Blinkit are amongst some of the leading retail/ Quick commerce companies, and KRBL, LT foods, Suguna Foods along with various local and regional brands are amongst some of leading food processing companies its serving on pure farm to retail/ farm to factory model.

It is working on plan to improve processing ratio of select crops and do a value added market linkage targeting not only domestic but key international markets too, there is a focused team doing a thorough study with respective govt agencies on identifying key crops and areas where such initiatives will help to not only reduce pos harvest loss but improve revenue and export substantially. To give an example, India is second largest producer of Tomato and produces almost 11% of  the world’s tomato, however it processes just 1% as against 26% of world’s Tomatoes getting processed , the demand of  Tomato paste is growing by 35% YoY in international market and in no time only tomato Paste’s global trade can be a 10 Billion dollar market, and this is just one category of tomato’s processed product.

Also, Post harvest loss in Tomato is as high as 25-30%,  and by introductive more effective supply chain and micro processing facilities and improving overall processing ratio this can substantially be reduced.

Currently more than 300 FPOs ,40000+ Farmers are engaged with Kisaanpro at various part of India, it started its journey from Jharkhand and slowly expanded to  select eastern states and now growing it’s base towards down south and very much active in Karnataka and soon to enter Tamilnadu and Telangana.

It has also been invited by Odisha govt and they will introduce the model in Odisha soon too.

Kissanpro has raised first seed round from white hill venture of Dubai and few other known angels in June 2021,

It is backed by group of IIT Khadakpur , IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore  Alumni’s and people from academia side with extensive research work are part of its advisory board.

Jharkhand Specific :

Not many startups comes from eastern states of India and then a startup from Ranchi winning such awards becoming inspiration for many, there is no dearth of talent in Jharkahnd and other eastern states, however with limited resources and lack of right support system, not many takes this route, but With example of kissanpro this will certainly inspire many to start small in own states if you strongly believe in idea and model and one gradually will find the right path and grow big in due course.

Kissanpro has raised first seed round from white hill venture of Dubai and few other known angels in June 2021,

It is backed by group of IIT Khadakpur , IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore  Alumni’s and people from academia side with extensive research work are part of its advisory board.

Journey of Ravi :

Born and bought in a small villageDantoo, located in Bokaro district

Son of a primary school teacher

Studied in Govt School of Dantoo

Did MBA from Pune University by taking education loan and then further did executive program  from IIM Ahmedabad

Worked with various multinational brands including Aditya Birla, Walmart , Sharaf DG and OYO, Played a key role in building a retail brand in middle east , and also in OYO’s global expansion, prior to doing own Agritech startup he was leading Revenue , sales and Marketing Vertical for OYO middle east.

Ravi has Worked and Travelled across 30+ countries 

Giving back to society is what he strongly believes in, and post 15+ years of International experience he decided to move back to India and contribute in bringing small but impactful transformations across agri industry.