Agritech startup Aibono secures $2M in pre-Series A round led by Japanese venture capital companies

Bengaluru-based agritech startup Aibono raises funding in its pre-Series A round from investors in Japan and Switzerland.

The round was led through Japanese venture capital companies Rebright Partners and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital based out of Tokyo and Singapore, respectively. Swiss effect investor Lesing Artha, a subsidiary of Rianta Capital (UK), additionally participated in the round.

Aibono stated it’ll use the investment to extend its connect with 2,000 additional farmers. It will even double the number of outlets who will buy the produce at once from Aibono.

At its heart, Aibono is a data science company. It integrates the supply chain from farm to consumer. The startup makes use of data to suit demand-supply synchronisation, farm analytics, etc., to save you food wastage, enhance agricultural efficiency, in addition to stabilise livelihoods of farmers, specialising in perishable veggies.

At present, Aibono works with more than one thousand farmers and 800 retailers. It reassets organics and veggies from the Nilgiris area in Tamil Nadu. The company additionally gives a stack of services through supporting farmers to develop better produce, and supplies produce to kiranas and the retailers.

Founder and CEO Vivek Rajkumar stated,

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“With this round of funding, we will now invest to scale capacity and increase supply to our existing Kirana businesses, expanding to institutional retail, as well as making possible direct-to-home supply of super perishables via modern delivery platforms like Swiggy, Dunzo, and Amazon in the next phase of our growth. We are encouraged and excited that Investor attention is on full-stack solutions starting from seed up to the point of consumption of fresh perishables as high potential businesses.”

Takeshi Ebihara, Founding General Partner of Rebright Partners, said, “With India’s retail demand for fresh farm produce going through the roof, very few players are concentrating on solving pain-points at the ground level for seamless movement of perishables across the value chain. With the government’s focus on opening up farm-gate infrastructure in recent times.”

He further added- “We are seeing startups such as Aibono who make full-stack agri-businesses lucrative to invest in. It’s inspiring to see their sustained first, middle, and last-mile E2E operations during the pandemic delivering essential premium and perishables, while demonstrating the best financials among fruit and vegetable platforms.”