Agritech startup DeHaat has raised $45.8 million in funding. The company is looking to boost its presence in the country and attain break-even profitability within two years.
DeHaat, a full-stack agritech business, announced a $60 million Series E fundraising round headed by Sofina Ventures and Temasek.
Other current investors RTP Global Partners, Prosus Ventures, and Lightrock India also participated in the round, according to the business.
According to a regulatory filing with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, DeHaat funded Rs 366.6 crore ($45.8 million) headed by Sofina Ventures on October 21. (MCA). This, however, was part of a bigger round, and the business today disclosed the total amount raised in a statement.
According to MCA documents from October, Sofina Ventures led the round with Rs 240 crore, while RTP Global Partners, Prosus (Naspers Ventures), and Lightrock India each contributed Rs 48 crore, Rs 32 crore, and Rs 46.6 crore. According to the documents, the firm is valued at $695 million following the current investment round (considering dollar at Rs 80).
According to the company’s official announcement today, the money comes as DeHaat adds over a million farmers to its network, expands its footprints to other areas throughout the world, and broadens its service offerings. However, the business did not reveal if the value was revised as a result of the extra capital.
DeHaat, which was founded in 2012, has established a full-stack agricultural model that includes services such as agricultural input distribution, customized farm counseling, access to finance services, and market connections to sell farmers’ output.
Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CEO of DeHaat, stated, “DeHaat’s 60x growth in the previous 40 months has been tremendous, laying the groundwork for a clear route to profitability. Closing a $60 million round when 70% of the previous deal is still outstanding demonstrates DeHaat’s winning status as a market leader in AgTech. At this moment in time, we are quite well capitalized, and we intend to exploit this position to consolidate our expansion toward efficiency and profitability. As a result, we want to break even in the next 12 months, with 2-2.5x YoY growth.”
The media revealed in August that DeHaat has joined the list of new-age IT businesses that had to resort to layoffs. The decision to slash expenditures and lay off personnel comes just ten months after the business obtained a big fundraising round of $115 million.
In October 2021, the firm secured $115 million in a round that included Sofina, Lightrock, Temasek, Sequoia, and Prosus, making it one of India’s largest agritech fundings.
During the most recent financing, the firm was valued at more than $500 million, thereby entering the soonicorn or’soon-to-be-unicorn’ club. According to a statement issued today by the firm, DeHaat serves more than 1.5 million farmers in 11 agricultural states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Odisha, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana.
Yana Kachurina, principal at Sofina, said, “We continue to be pleased with DeHaat’s vision and desire to empower farmers and local communities. With this extra financing, we want to generate an even deeper and broader effect within the existing network as well as new regions.”
DeHaat further stated that it has developed a last-mile supply chain in over 1,10,000 villages across 150 districts in India through its digitized network of over 10,000 micro-entrepreneurs known as ‘DeHaat Centers’ for last-mile delivery and aggregation. This fundraising round was also advised by Dexter Capital and Vertices Partners, according to the company.
Since 2019, the firm has also acquired four acquisitions. In April, the business paid an undisclosed sum for the acquisition of food tech startup Y-Cook India Pvt Ltd.
This follows its January acquisition of agri-input marketplace startup Helicrofter in order to extend its position in Maharashtra and the rest of western India.
It bought FarmGuide in 2021, allowing it to integrate satellite-based crop advice products for farmers. The firm purchased VezaMart, a platform that creates agricultural management solutions for farmers, in May 2019.
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