Agri-tech startup Gold Farm secures USD 2 M in seed round
Gold Farm
Founders: Abhilash Thirupathy, Karthic Ravindranath
Founded in: 2012
Financing status: USD 2 million for seed round in 2017
Bangalore-based farm equipment booking platform Gold Farm has raised USD 2 million in a seed funding round from tractor and automobile manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra and early-stage investment firm Infuse Ventures.
Gold Farm was founded in 2012 by Abhilash Thirupathy and Karthik Ravindranath. Thirupathy, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, previously co-founded health company Rx HealthcareMagic. Prior to that, he served as a business development manager at Johnson & Johnson. Ravindranath, an alumnus of PSG College of Technology, co-founded and worked as the CTO of Sakthi Aerospace, an aerospace engineering service organization.
Gold Farm is an app-based farm equipment booking platform for farmers in India. The platform provides a range of certified tractors, implements, and harvesters. It also provides solar water pumps in regions prone to power shortages. Via its 24*7 booking service, the app allows farmers to check hourly rental rates and equipment availability by date. Gold Farm works offline when the network connectivity is weak in rural areas. Besides the app, the startup also provides users with call center services in case users encounter issues or have complaints. The startup currently has over 100 employees and has operations in the five Indian cities of Bangalore, Kolar, Hubli, Coimbatore, and Trichy.
The startup will use the newly raised investment to build its team, upgrade technology, outreach to farmers, and expand services across the state of Karnataka.
Other players in the agri-tech area in India include CropIn, Crofarm, EM3 Agri Services, FarMart, RML AgTech, etc.
(Top photo from Gold Farm Twitter)