Impact investment firm, Lok Capital, which manages two funds with a total corpus over US$85 million, has made its first investment in the ag sector, leading a Rs 25 cr (US$3.7 million) Series B round for Pune-based potato supply management company, Siddhivinayak Agri Processing Pvt Ltd (SV Agri).

 

"It was the right model in terms of commercial and social impact. We liked the integrated business model and founders have fairly good experience too. We also wanted to play in a commodity that is large,” Rajesh Babu, director, Lok Capital told the Economic Times.

 

The round also included SV Agri existing investor, Aspada Capital, which contributed Rs 10 cr (US$1.5 million) to the round, according to the Economic Times. In 2011, SV Agri raised Rs 5 cr (US$750,000) from SONG, a fund backed by George Soros, Google, and Omidyar Network, which is also managed by Aspada.

 

Founded by Gaur and Ganesh Pawar in 2009, SV Agri provides both pre and post-harvest production solutions to potato farmers and processors. Through its network of over 100 franchisees, the company sells potato seeds and other inputs, facilitates credit, supplies marketing connections, and provides expertise and knowledge to producers in the industry. The company has said it will use the capital to scale up production of its proprietary potato seed brand, to strengthen the company’s procurement activities, and to advance its technology initiatives and build its team, according to VC Circle.

 

“Having tracked the growth and performance of the firm for the last few years, we believe that SV Agri shall set the benchmark for organising [sic] the fragmented agri-supply chains,” Kushal Agrawal, CFO of Aspada told VC Circle.