Agritech startups .. train wreck in slowmo …

What is the value they are adding ? Are they increasing productivity of farmers or increasing quality of produce? Or filling any inefficiencies in the system? Is it all fluff?

@DesiAgritechGuy having interacted with Agri tech firms - agree on this. Most become whollsellers themselves In your pov - are there any agritech firms doing well?

This is in the b2b context.. Farmers want better prices, customers won’t pay for the higher cost.. the Indian agri supply chain is a broken one but it’s frugal and efficient in its own ways.. loading costs on it that don’t pay for themselves quickly aren’t sustainable no matter what the consultants say on their decks.. EVERY product has existing entrenched players who have tried much of what the startup’s are doing or are doing what the startups are doing.. if the existing players aren’t doing something then there’s probably a reason for it.. how are the start ups better? Poor understanding of risks - credit, quality, storage, adverse price movements, employee fidelity. Weak systems due to lack of people who are from the industry.. lack of controls, whatever are there are set by people who don’t understand or have never worked in agri biz. auditors who depute 20 something year old kids who haven’t worked in real life businesses to evaluate determine processes and existing trade practices, copy paste retail processes on bulk commodity businesses, customers and vendors protestations be damned.. investors relentlessly pushed for unreasonable growth rates that no traditional business would ever push for because they know that sensible checks and balances would be thrown to the winds if they did so.. issues with revenue recognition and quality of debtor balances on books; poor provisioning practices .. investors themselves incentivised such practices by way of higher valuations.. and so it goes on..

There is opportunity for startups alright ! There is a huge demand for organic products which are not laced with harmful pesticides and adulteration free ! All they need to do is source raw materials from source and then market those products in budget prices in mass ! This is easier said than done but it is a pretty solvable problem and the profits won't be that impressive for initial years !

Agriculture is a highly govt regulated and subsidised system , and govt does a lot of technology support and upskilling farmers . Inspite of that , we all know how much a farmer makes on average . Startups founders who knows nothing about dynamics of farming , farmers problems wants to change their income . It’s just funny . If Indian Startups wants to do anything in this category , their focus should be in making seeds or cold storage . These are 2 categories which has Indian farmers struggling

Any notable exceptions you've seen? I'm seeing multiple startups get into organic produce these days. Plus so many headlines on better India where techies left jobs to earn lakhs with farming. Some of them must be true at least , otherwise there wouldn't be so many players in the market.

What do you think of firms like ninjacart? They're cm1/2 profitable AFAIK

Isn't fasal doing well? I thought it was

Dehaat recently did some esop buyback.. must be doing something good in their business..