Paypal founder Peter Thiel's foundation invests in an Indian fund for farmers

• Kisan Network, an Indian agriculture supply chain startup that aims to connect farmers via phones has raised $3 million ( ₹21.4 crore) as seed fund.
  
• Its angel investors include Y Combinator, the Thiel Foundation, Venture Highway, FundersClub, Lynett Capital, Gokul Rajaram among others.
  
• It plans to address two major roadblocks in farmer’s growth — access to information and the resources to facilitate it.
  
• The company claims that the kisans earn 5%-15% of the crop sale — more than what they can earn in a conventional system.

Kisan Network, an Indian agriculture supply chain startup that aims to connect farmers via phones has raised $3 million ( ₹21.4 crore) as seed fund from PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s foundation. The fresh round of fundraising by the founder, the Princeton University dropout, Aditya Agarwalla was led by Atutshi Taira, who is the managing director of Mistletoe Singapore.

“We see immense value in Kisan Network’s focus in providing market linkages directly to farmers, and their progress so far in building out each aspect of their tech enabled supply chain is empowering farmers to become entrepreneurs by providing various kinds of services,” Taira said.

Agarwalla started Kisan Network with $100,000 awarded by Thiel Foundation in 2016. Today the firm’s backers include Y Combinator, the Thiel Foundation, Venture Highway, FundersClub, Lynett Capital, Gokul Rajaram among others.

“Treating farmers like entrepreneurs”

Founded in 2016, the startup plans to use the fresh capital to expand its network of farmers and come up with more farmer-centric products. It has on boarded over 55,000 farmers across 6,000 villages in rural India.

“We treat the farmer like an entrepreneur. This investment will aid the rapid expansion into new regions and crops across the country, bringing lakhs of more marginal farmers into the fold and helping them ship hundreds of more trucks directly from their farms to businesses.” said Aditya Agarwalla, co-founder of Kisan Network.

Kisan Network is working to revamp the Indian agriculture space. It plans to address two major roadblocks in farmer’s growth — access to information and the resources to facilitate it. The kisan (hindi word for farmer) on the platform is given crop quality reports, market prices for the produce, and transportation rates along with assisting them with logistics and digital payments.

“Farmers all over India face several hurdles at the time of crop sale — including pricing, limited knowledge of potential markets, delayed payments and lack of logistical support. These hurdles are well documented. They have been present for generations with little to no improvement at a large enough scale to impact farmers directly,” Agarwalla added.

The company claims that the farmers earn anywhere between 5% and 15% of the crop sale — a lot more than what they can earn in a conventional system.

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