By Lynda Kiernan
Singapore-based investor Technogen has made an undisclosed investment in Pune-based Shivrai Technologies, the parent of FarmERP, an agricultural enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform designed to enable its users to mitigate and prepare for climate-related risks.
Founded in 2001 by computer engineers Sanjay Borkar and Santosh Shinde under the name Farm Management Software, and later changing its name to FarmERP in 2007, FarmERP is a platform with a presence in more than 25 countries. With 23 modules and over 600 screens, it supports more than 500 agriculture companies, crop insurance companies, NGOs, governments, and research & design companies including Mahindra & Mahindra, Murugappa Group, DS Group, Plantheon Group, Anadolu Etap, and Azersun, according to TechCircle.
The capital from this investment will be used by the company to develop and build-in AI-based climate resilience intelligence to better combat climate risks and to raise sustainability in relation to agricultural production. The funds also will be used to expand the company’s reach, where it will apply its expertise in AI, machine learning, computer vision, and blockchain to refine and increase the efficiency, profitability, traceability, and yields of farming operations.
“Now we focus on climate-resilient agriculture,” said Sanjay Borkar, co-founder and CEO, FarmERP. “Predictable and intelligent agriculture is the future and we are committed to empowering our clients across the globe to take on new challenges in this competitive landscape.”
‘‘We have been super successful in helping agribusinesses to harness the power of smart agriculture to achieve higher efficiency, higher yields, higher profitability, and complete traceability since the last 18 years.”
Investment Climate
Increasingly, farmers and agricultural investors alike have rebounded against the idea that farming is completely at the mercy of the weather, and have turned to technology to better arm themselves against mother nature.
“According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), over 20 percent of economic losses due to natural disasters are absorbed by agricultural businesses worldwide with natural disasters, accounting for approximately one quarter of annual crop losses,” said Bonnefield Investment Analyst Jeremy Stroud in Part V of his GAI News Series A Shift in the Air: Weather Volatility, Environmental Disasters and Their Implication for Agriculture.
As farmers are facing the real effects of climate change on the ground, this past year has seen an uptick in investment rounds in support of risk management platforms that can help them prepare and fight back against volatile climatic conditions.
In June 2019, Tel Aviv-based agtech startup Agritask raised $6 million from the InsuResiliance Investment Fund, an investment vehicle established for the German government by KfW Development Bank and managed by Swiss impact investment manager BlueOrchard Finance.
Already serving clients in more than 15 countries, including small and large scale farmers, food producers, government extension agencies, and insurers in mostly emerging and frontier markets, Agritask’s ‘One platform – One database’ system offers the ability to upgrade agronomic visibility and real-time decision making which helps with risk management.
And when used by agricultural insurers, can revolutionize their ability to determine accurate risk analysis. This in turn helps them develop and manage more advanced insurance offerings, achieve deeper insurance penetration to new and underserved markets, and lower operation costs.
The following quarter, in November 2019, London-based Earth science startup Cervest announced it had raised £3.7 million (US$4.7 million) through an oversubscribed Pre-Series A round led by tech investor Future Positive Capital, and with backing from Astanor Ventures, and participation from the National Institute of Agricultural Botany.
Built on three years of work, Cervest’s team of leading scientists, mathematicians, developers, and engineers have combined knowledge of AI, imaging, machine learning, and Bayesian statistics, with modeling techniques from proven Earth sciences including meteorology, atmospheric science, hydrology, and agronomy to create a platform capable of analyzing billions of data points to forecast how shifts in climate will manifest in the future.
“There are few winners in the wake of catastrophe, as production capacity, investor confidence, and local infrastructure all suffer,” noted Stroud. “As such, traditional portfolios consisting of public equity and fixed income assets are particularly vulnerable to natural disaster events due to their global interconnectedness.”
– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.