KisanHub raises £3.4M from ​Sistema_VC​, Notion and IQ Capital to digitise agri supply chain for the world’s largest food and beverage companies. By connecting with growers and collecting the data, the platform provides insights for more efficient process. The funding raised helps the company in scaling up the deployment of the platform in multiple geographies

Supply chains are one of the most complex ​and least efficient ​components in the business of delivering goods from farmers to consumers. And when they don’t function effectively, whole communities around the globe suffer. That’s why KisanHub is taking a Series A round of funding to build upon 2018’s progress  signing deals with two out of the five largest global food and beverage companies in the  world. 

KisanHub helps global food and beverage companies manage their supply chains efficiently by connecting directly with their farmers to collect information and by revealing supply-chain insights.  

How it works:

·         The platform connects multiple actors in the supply chain including farmers, agronomists and procurement managers and ñcollect a multitude of data sources and process them using its own IoT and aerial image processing cloud.

·         Algorithms provide the insights which make the supply chain and procurement process more reliable and predictable.  

·         Optimisation of such a complicated process is make or break in agriculture. 

The investment round was led by venture capital firm ​Sistema_VC​ who have previously invested in a number of European deep tech startups. The Sistema investment is alongside venture capital firms ​Notion​ and ​IQ Capital​ who followed their investment from the seed round.  The investment will be used to continue the development of the platform and implementation of it across multiple geographies for global brands.

KisanHub currently has 14 enterprise clients using its platform to bring together supply chain data to help simplify complex decisions. This helps to make agriculture predictable and profitable, helping enterprises and farmers move from intuition-based decision-making to analytical decision-making.

KisanHub’s CEO, Dr Sachin Shende:

“KisanHub' existing clients are looking to scale the implementation across tens of thousands of farmers growing crops on millions of hectares of land spanning their global supply chain. This is a massive undertaking and also a massive opportunity for KisanHub with a big positive impact on sustainability. The Series A round will help KisanHub help scale the team to scale the platform with focus on enhancing Data Insight capabilities of the platform. We are excited to have Sistema_VC​ joining us on this journey and it is great to have our existing investors, Notion and IQ Capital, backing us again.” 

Sistema_VC​’s​ ​Managing Partner​, ​Dmitry Filatov:

“Supply chain is one of the most complex and least efficient components in the business of delivering goods from farmers to consumers. Algorithms by Kisanhub make the supply chain more reliable and the procurement process predictable.  Supply chain is always at seasonal risk, which machine learning helps to reduce. Optimisation of such a complicated process appears to be at a strong demand in  agriculture.” 

AB InBev’s Chief Procurement and Sustainability Officer, Tony Milikin:

“After KisanHub’s strong pilot performance in our 100+ Accelerator in the APAC region, we are very pleased to see them go on and raise a substantial Series A investment round. Over the last year, we worked together to implement their technology to improve the  sustainable farming practices of thousands of farmers in India, as part of our journey  to hit our 2025 Sustainability Goal as well as the UN’s Sustainable Development  Goals.” 

About KisanHub 

KisanHubis headquartered in Cambridge, UK with operations in Pune, India and was founded by Dr Sachin Shende (CEO) and Giles Barker (COO) having been accelerated out of the Cambridge University Judge Business School’s Accelerate Program in 2013. KisanHub is helping drive a massive technology-driven shift in agriculture, both in terms of the growing of produce as well as supply chain management. KisanHub works at the intersection of precision agriculture, big data, cloud computing, machine learning and mobile to deliver clear decision points to agri-food enterprises and their farmers. KisanHub makes sense of disparate data to simplify complex decisions to make agriculture predictable and profitable. KisanHub also supplies data to all upstream and downstream members of the food supply  chain to prove food provenance and increase production efficiency from Farmer to Retailer. 

About ​Sistema_VC 

Sistema_VC​ makes venture investments into deep tech startups and brands rooted in knowledge-intensive, hard-to-copy technologies that push the boundaries of science and technology to make life better for all. The startups they support use machine learning, computer vision, big data, and other cutting-edge expertise to build their products and services. These technologies can be applied in different economic spheres, and have the potential to thrive on the global market. The portfolio includes Connecterra, DataSine,  TraceAir, GOSU Data Lab, and other companies. 

About Notion  

Notionis an early stage investor in European enterprise tech, SaaS and Cloud.  We are here to create the conditions for extraordinary success with the entrepreneur at the centre. We want to help European tech companies fulfil their potential and achieve massive scale. We invest early when we can build strong relationships and help to shape the future success of our companies.  Within our portfolio and beyond, we are building a thriving ecosystem that connects and recycles enterprise tech talent, ambition, knowledge, resources and of course money to support generations of entrepreneurs and help them create enterprise tech companies that scale.  ​

About IQ Capital 

IQ Capital, based in Cambridge and London, invests in early stage 'deep tech' B2B companies from the UK, that are capable of dominating their global markets. IQ is particularly focused on disruptive algorithms in machine learning, fintech, data science, IoT as well as embedded systems including research machines and robotics. Many of their investments have a strong link to innovation originating in Cambridge and other tech centres. Recent exits include trade sales to Google, Apple, Huawei, BD and Xchanging as well as two IPOs. 

About AB InBev 

The partnership with AB InBev was ​first announced​ in October 2018 at the launch of the 100+ Accelerator program where KisanHub was selected out of hundreds of companies to assist with helping farmers in India become connected and financially empowered. The program was set up with the goal of assisting AB InBev in reaching the global brewer’s 2025 sustainability goals.  Over the last year, we have implemented the KisanHub platform with over 1000 of our direct farmers in India. Through this work, we have been able to connect directly with these smallholder farmers and will be able to provide automatic advice on irrigation and pest disease pressures through the multiple sources of data which KisanHub collected and analysed for next season. We are really excited about the potential and the future this platform could have in delivering real time insights, connectivity and communication to our AB InBev farming network, ensuring that 100% of our direct farmers are skilled, connected and financially empowered by 2025. This is something both AB InBev and KisanHub are passionate about, said Diane Wauters, ​Sustainability & Agricultural Development Director - APAC ​at AB InBev.