Impact firm Omnivore leads Investment Round in agri-analytics startup AgNext

Chandigarh-based agri-analytics startup AgNext has raised the undisclosed sum in a round led by social impact firm Omnivore.

This is the second investment from the venture capital firm’s second fund, Omnivore Partners India Fund II. Samir Kumar, a high net worth individual from Singapore, also participated in this round.

As part of this funding, Subhadeep Sanyal, principal at Omnivore, will join AgNext’s board.

AgNext, focused on horticulture and plantation crops, collects spatial, temporal and spectral data to provide solutions across the agriculture and food value chain. Its digital platform aims to improve the productivity and profitability of growers and food processors.

AgNext Technologies Pvt. Ltd (legal name of AgNext) was founded by Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, Mrigank Sharad and Deepak Jaiswal in 2016. All three co-founders are graduates from IIT-Kharagpur in agricultural and food engineering. Previously, Bhamra was with ITC Foods, Alshaya, and KPMG. Sharad is currently associated with IIT-Kharagpur as an assistant professor. Jaiswal did a PhD in agricultural and biological engineering from Penn State University, US, and conducted research in crop growth modelling at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US, and the State University of Campinas, Brazil.

The agri-analytics startup, which was incubated at IIT-Kharagpur, received seed funds and acceleration from a-IDEA, managed by National Academy of Agricultural Research Management in Hyderabad. It has also received multiple innovation awards, including best product (TiEcon), best innovation (Confederation of Indian Industry), and the Karnataka Grand Challenge.