Agri services firm Arya raises US$ 6 million from Omnivore, LGT Lightstone Aspada
- IBEF
- March 5, 2020
Arya Collateral Warehousing Services Pvt Ltd has raised US$ 6 million in a pre-Series B funding round from venture capital firm Omnivore and existing investor LGT Lightstone Aspada.
The Noida-based company offers post-harvest services including warehousing, warehouse receipt financing, rural storage discovery, collateral management and market linkages.
Farmers, farmer producer organisations (FPOs), financial institutions, commodity traders and corporate agribusinesses are among the company’s client. The company manages over 2.5 million tonnes of farm commodities across 1,400 warehouses, it said in a statement.
It also provides warehouse receipt financing via Aryadhan, its non-banking financial company (NBFC) subsidiary. Its subsidiary offers credit to farmers, FPOs and SME aggregators who have stored commodities in Arya's warehouse network.
The company intends to utilise these funds to increase its storage network and warehouse receipt financing business and lay the foundations for a pan-India farm commodity warehousing marketplace. A rural storage discovery platform is also planned to be launched.
"A significant part of the funds will be used to increase the book of Aryadhan, the financial services arm," said Mr Prasanna Rao, co-founder and chief executive of Arya. "We will use a part of the funds to build innovative storage technology which could facilitate storage at the farm gate, without construction of warehouses," he added.
The company is also planning to expand through an online warehousing marketplace where services such as finance, logistics, labour, insurance will be available on one platform.
Until 2013, Arya was part of the JM Baxi Group. The same year, Mr Rao and Mr Anand Chandra acquired a controlling stake in the company.
“Arya’s warehousing model profitably serves the agri storage and financing needs of smallholders, FPOs, and corporations in the smaller rural markets. With their experience supporting technology-driven innovation in agriculture, Omnivore’s coming on board will strengthen our next generation work to further improve efficiencies in the post-harvest ecosystem," Mr Rao said.
“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," Mr Jinesh Shah, managing partner of Omnivore, said.
A Series B fundraising round is also planned by the company by mid-2020.
Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.
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