Arya筹集了2100万美元，为印度农民提供融资和收获后服务

印度农民生产的单产中只有大约三分之一到达了大市场。那些今天生产农产品的人可以利用收获后的服务。其他所有人都错过了。

一家位于诺伊达（Noida）的初创企业正在与所有利益相关方（农民，食品加工商，贸易商和金融机构）合作，以弥合这一收获后服务的差距—它只是获得了新的资金来继续其发展。

七岁的艾莉亚（Arya）周二表示，已在其B轮融资中筹集了2100万美元。该轮融资由专注于新兴市场金融科技的风险投资公司Quona Capital领导。 Arya说，现有投资者LGT Lightstone Aspada和Omnivore也参加了这一轮融资，而多家未具名的贷方正在为这家初创公司提供额外的债务融资。

Arya联合创始人兼首席执行官Prasanna Rao解释说，当今印度几乎所有的收获后干预措施都主要集中在主要农业中心，例如印度北部拉贾斯坦邦的Kota和首都新德里的Azadpur Mandi。采访TechCrunch。

他说，这种不均衡的集中度使该国数百万农民失去了有效存储和出售其农产品的合理选择权以及维持现金流的融资选择权。

“我们的信念是，我们应该迎合目前服务不足的市场的三分之二。例如，哥打曼迪（市场）在半径1公里内有35个银行分支机构。但是，如果您距离Kota 70至80公里，这的确会下降。”以前在银行工作过的Rao说。

Arya正在解决所有上述挑战：它在印度20个州建立了由1500多个仓库组成的网络，该仓库存储着价值超过10亿美元的商品。该网络使农民可以将农产品存储在距离农场更近的中心，从而避免了大市场的任何溢价和过高的房地产成本。在信贷方面，Arya已向农民支付了3650万美元，其银行合作伙伴已支付了9500万美元。

Quona Capital的联合创始人兼合伙人Ganesh Rengaswamy在一份声明中说：“阿里亚（Arya）正在解决印度一个服务水平低下的农民市场，其中一半以前以前没有收获后融资的机会。” “我们相信Arya独特的方法，为小农户提供具有嵌入式金融和差异化效率的全方位服务数字平台，将推动印度农业的未来。”

事实证明，该公司提供的产品在冠状病毒大流行期间更有用，因为新德里在今年早些时候实施了全球最严格的封锁措施之一。此次封锁打破了供应链网络，农产品价格下跌了20％以上。

为了解决这一问题，Arya通过其自己的数字市场a2zgodaam.com将农民的农产品组织者或FPO与购买者联系起来。 “需要立即流动性，这些仓库收据的信贷需求增加。 Arya的信贷业务同比增长了3倍。”印度Accel的创始合伙人Prashanth Prakash和Omnivore的执行合伙人Mark Kahn上周在一份行业报告中写道。

Rao说，随着这家初创公司扩大其在全国范围内的仓库网络，Arya将以“大方式”部署新资金来扩展其金融科技平台。此外，这家初创公司计划促进a2zgodaam.com的发展，该网站还聚集了无组织的仓库，并向他们提供了自己的金融服务商和保险公司，以及在需要时允许农民通过这些仓库直接出售的方法。

Only about a third of the yields Indian farmers produce reaches the big markets. Those whose produce makes it there today are able to leverage post-harvest services. Everyone else is missing out.

A Noida-based startup is working with all the stakeholders — farmers, food processors, traders and financial institutions — to bridge this post-harvest services gap — and it just secured new funds to continue its journey.

Seven-year-old Arya said on Tuesday it has raised $21 million in its Series B financing round. The round was led by Quona Capital, a venture firm that focuses on fintech in emerging markets. Existing investors LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore also participated in the round, while multiple unnamed lenders are providing additional debt financing to the startup, Arya said.

Nearly all post-harvest interventions that exist in India today are focused largely toward major agriculture centres such as Kota in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan and Azadpur Mandi in capital New Delhi, explained Prasanna Rao, co-founder and chief executive of Arya, in an interview with TechCrunch.

This uneven concentration has deprived millions of farmers in the country of reasonable options to efficiently store and sell their produce and of financing options to maintain their cash flow, he said.

“Our belief is that we should cater to the two-thirds of the market that are currently underserved. The Kota mandi (market), for instance, has 35 bank branches in a kilometre of radius. But if you travel 70 to 80 kilometres away from Kota, this really declines,” said Rao, who previously worked at a bank.

Arya is solving all the aforementioned challenges: It operates a network of more than 1,500 warehouses in 20 Indian states where it stores over $1 billion worth of commodities. This network allows farmers to store their produce at a centre that is much nearer to their farms, avoiding any spillage and exorbitant real estate costs of the big markets. On the credit side, Arya has disbursed over $36.5 million to farmers and its banking partners have disbursed more than $95 million.

“Arya is addressing a vastly underserved market of farmers in India, half of whom previously had little access to post-harvest finance,” said Ganesh Rengaswamy, co-founder and partner at Quona Capital,  in a statement. “We believe Arya’s unique approach, providing a full-service digital platform with embedded finance and differentiated efficiencies for small farmholders, will drive the future of farming in India.”

The startup’s offerings have proven even more useful during the coronavirus pandemic, which saw New Delhi enforce one of the world’s strictest lockdowns earlier this year. The lockdown broke the supply chain network, and prices of agricultural commodities dropped by over 20%.

To navigate this, Arya connected farmer produce organizers, or FPOs, with buyers through its own digital marketplace a2zgodaam.com. “The need for immediate liquidity saw demand increase for credit against these warehouse receipts. Arya’s credit portfolio saw a 3x jump year-on-year,” wrote Prashanth Prakash, a founding partner at Accel in India, and Mark Kahn, managing partner at Omnivore in an industry report last week.

Rao said Arya will deploy the fresh capital to scale its fintech platform in a “big way” as the startup broadens its network of warehouses across the country. Additionally, the startup plans to fuel the growth of a2zgodaam.com, which also aggregates unorganized warehouses, and supercharge them with their own set of financiers and insurers and ways to allow farmers to sell directly through these warehouses if they need.