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. Existing investors, including Omnivore, AgFunder, Rebright Partners, Flourish Ventures, HATCH and other debt investors participated in this round, too. 

A company statement said the start-up will utilise the fresh funds to strengthen its portfolio of scalable solutions that use AI (artificial intelligence) and satellite remote sensing to widen its service offerings in pre- and post-harvest aquaculture value chain (to input retailers, seafood buyers and other stakeholders). 

Aquaconnect aims to strengthen its hold in the pre-harvest chain by tripling its AquaPartners network across India. Currently, the company has a network of over 500 rural entrepreneurs, providing last-mile assistance, serving over 90,000 fish and shrimp farmers, as AquaPartners. 

Scaling up ops

Commenting on the Series A fund round, Rajamanohar Somasundaram, Aquaconnect founder and CEO, said, “We have added about 500 AquaPartners over the past 12 months and this phygital network has helped us scale up across six major aquaculture production States. In the next 12 months, we are set to triple our network across the country and optimise our service offerings.”

Aquaconnect has built a robust logistics infrastructure in rural and coastal regions to meet the last-mile connectivity. This helps the company to complete delivery overnight to its partners. 

In the post-harvest chain, the company aims to scale up its seafood market linkage across domestic markets. Further, Aquaconnect plans to accelerate seafood exports to the top markets such as the US, China and Japan and capture a significant share in the blue protein segment, globally. 

“We have been operating our domestic market linkages and overseas exports under stealth. As our pilots have shown great success, our team is geared up to scale the success achieved and enhance B2B offerings in the next 12-18 months”, said Somasundaram.

 Aquaculture is a great means for smallholder farmers to enjoy significant upward economic mobility. While aquaculture might seem like a niche agtech space, it is the sunrise sector in India witnessing double-digit year-on-year growth with a $15B market opportunity. 

Value chain inefficiencies

However, the industry is hampered by inefficiencies in the value chain and there is a great scope for tech disruption. 

To tap its potential,  Aquaconnect, with its deep-tech intervention, plans to strengthen the aquaculture value chain and emerge as a key player in the growing blue food segment. “We are excited to be a part of Aquaconnect’s growth, while it chases its aspiring goals and scales its operations in the domestic and global markets,” said Hari Krishnan, Partner, Lok Capital. 

Lok Capital has been investing since 2007 and has deployed over $250 million so far across three funds. Currently, Lok Capital is investing out of its fourth fund, focusing on fintech, climate technology, agtech and health tech across Series A and B rounds. 

 “The next 12-18 months will be challenging and exciting at the same time, the fresh funds will help us to accelerate our efforts and strengthen tech capabilities and bring efficiency and transparency in the aquaculture value chain,’‘ said Somasundaram.

In July last year, Aquaconnect - a 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 - raised $4 million in a pre-Series A round from Rebright, Flourish ventures and AgFunder. 

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