Aquaconnect, a full-stack aquaculture platform, has raised $15 million (₹120 crore) in a Series A funding round, led by Lok Capital, with participation from Louis Dreyfus Company Ventures, Suneight Investment along with existing investors including Omnivore, Rebright Partners, Flourish Ventures, HATCH and other debt investors.
The start-up will utilise the fresh funds to strengthen its portfolio of scalable solutions that use AI and satellite remote sensing and widen its service offerings in both the pre-harvest and post-harvest aquaculture value chain (to input retailers, seafood buyers and other stakeholders). The firm intends to grow its pre-harvest chain by tripling its AquaPartners network. Currently, the company has a network of over 500 AquaPartners (rural entrepreneurs who provide last-mile assistance), serving over 90,000 fish and shrimp farmers.
Rajamanohar Somasundaram, founder and CEO of Aquaconnect, said, “The fresh funds will help us to accelerate our efforts and strengthen tech capabilities and bring efficiency and transparency in the aquaculture value chain.” In the post-harvest chain, the company aims to scale its seafood market linkage across domestic markets in India. Further, Aquaconnect plans to accelerate seafood exports to the top import markets like the U.S., China and Japan and capture a significant share in the blue protein segment, globally.
In July last year, Aquaconnect had raised $4 million in a pre-Series A round from Rebright, Flourish ventures and AgFunder. Aquaconnect is a full-stack aquaculture platform with embedded fintech that uses satellite remote sensing and Artificial Intelligence to enable aquaculture farmers, retailers, and seafood buyers to increase access to formal credit, farm inputs and post-harvest markets.
Published - December 19, 2022 10:29 pm IST
