ImpactAlpha, March 4 – India-based Arya supports smallholder farmers in getting their goods to market by providing warehousing facilities that are often unavailable to small producers. It also offers farmer financing backed by warehouse receipts.
Impact investor Omnivore invested in the company’s $6 million funding round alongside LGT Lightstone Aspada (see, “LGT acquires Aspada from Soros”).
“The Arya team is transforming agri-storage and financing across rural India, making small-scale warehousing viable at the village level, which farmers desperately require,” said Omnivore’s Jinesh Shah.
Arya is Omnivore’s third deal of the year. It also invested in Clover, which supports India’s greenhouse-based farmers, and online food marketplace TechnifyBiz. The agrifood tech-focused impact investor plans to close a half-dozen deals in total this year from its $97 million second fund.
Omnivore’s Mark Kahn told ImpactAlpha that India’s agrifood tech scene is seeing better dealflow and more experienced entrepreneurs. “The startup ecosystem is much bigger than it was in 2013, during our early days,” he says. Many founders have previous startup experience, “or they have excellent corporate pedigrees, like the Arya founders.”
