Agritech startup DeHaat, backed by investors such as Peak XV Partners and Sofina Ventures, has entered the consumer market by introducing its own brand alongside its existing business-to-business supply chain and market linkage services.
This comes months after the startup completed an all-cash deal in November last year to acquire the fruit export business of Ahmedabad-based listed fruit export firm Freshtrop Fruits.
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DeHaat has introduced its Honest Farms brand across various retail channels such as modern trade, quick commerce, and ecommerce platforms. The brand encompasses 200 different stock keeping units (SKUs) spanning categories like pulses, rice, and spices.
Since the brand is still relatively new, Honest Farms is now operating in stealth mode. As such, we are not actively pursuing TV advertisements or significant marketing expenses. “We are more concerned with attracting the first 100,000 customers purely on the basis of our product than we are with marketing,” DeHaat founder and CEO Shashank Kumar said.
Emails sent to DeHaat yielded no response.
Established in 2012 by Shashank Kumar, Amrendra Singh, Shyam Sundar, and Adarsh Srivastav, DeHaat, headquartered in Patna and Gurugram, provides comprehensive agricultural solutions to farmers. These solutions encompass the distribution of premium agricultural inputs, personalized farm advisory services, access to financial facilities, and connections to markets for selling their produce.
Since its establishment, the startup asserts that it has catered to more than 2 million farmers across 11 states in India via its digital network comprising over 11,000 ‘DeHaat Centers’.
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The startup maintains a network of over 1,500 stock-keeping units, delivering over 15,000 orders per day to customers in more than 15 countries.
In FY22, DeHaat recorded a staggering 253% year-over-year increase in its loss, reaching INR 1,563.9 Cr. Additionally, in 2022, the startup successfully secured $60 million in Series E funding, bringing the total amount raised in the round to $106 million.