According to him, the sector has persistent issues around inaccurate pricing, faulty weighing, and opaque dealings with vendors, buyers, and financial institutions. “Our mission is clear: use tech to improve access and build assurance—for farmers and for those who serve them,” he told Mint in an interview.
Arya.ag is doing so with an online marketplace for farmers and buyers. The digital platform addresses critical bottlenecks in both procurement and agri-finance. The company offers tools for warehouse discovery, satellite-based crop monitoring, farm advisory, and instant grain quality testing. It also enables real-time warehouse surveillance and blockchain-led commodity traceability.
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The firm supports farmer producer organisations (FPOs) with stock management, digital credit, and market linkage. Its internet-of-things (IoT)-enabled hermetic storage system allows farmers to store their produce in airtight units where warehouses are unavailable, protecting crops from pests, moisture, and spoilage. Arya’s Arjun platform also handles end-to-end procurement for agribusinesses, supporting efficient, climate-smart, and traceable agri-commerce.
Origin story
Arya.ag, originally part of the JM Baxi Group since 1982 (it was known as Arya Agencies), was restructured into a post-harvest agri-commerce platform in 2013 after co-founders Prasanna Rao, Chattanathan Devarajan, and Anand Chandra acquired a controlling stake.
The company began by digitising agricultural warehouses. India has more than 120,000 such warehouses, according to co-founder and executive director Chandra. “Yet very little visibility exists into their location, quality, or availability. So we built a platform to help farmers and organisations book warehouse space—much like we book hotels today. We’ve already digitised 12,000 warehouses,” he said.
Once the produce is stored, Arya.ag offers real-time assurance through artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled cameras that monitor activity, detect anomalies, and provide automatic alerts. This protects the farmer’s produce and helps maintain trust.
Financing for farmers
The company has also connected storage with finance. Using historical crop pricing data, Arya.ag allows farmers to borrow against stored commodities. “At harvest, prices are typically the lowest. By waiting a few months, farmers can get better rates. Our tech lets them do that without losing liquidity,” Chandra added.
For example, a farmer can get a loan within within 30 minutes of depositing his produce. The system uses quality and market-value data to calculate the loan amount, and the offer is sent to the farmer via the app or SMS in their local language. Once they approve, the funds are transferred in minutes.
Later, when farmers are ready to sell, they can choose from multiple buyers on the platform rather than relying on local traders. “If needed, we even help bridge short-term finance. Our system clears loans and passes on the extra earnings to the farmer, all while taking on the credit risk ourselves,” Rao added.
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This approach, he believes, helps farmers avoid distress sales immediately after harvest and get better prices through a wider pool of buyers. “Importantly, we do not trade in commodities ourselves, which helps us avoid direct competition with local moneylenders or traders. We position ourselves as facilitators, not buyers,” he said.
Adoption has been strong—99% of the disbursements are digital, and 94% of customers now download their account statements themselves, “something that was unthinkable just a couple of years ago”, according to Rao. “The key, as my co-founder Anand often says, is that tech must be affordable and deliver clear value,” he added.
Government’s agritech push
India’s agritech sector benefits from the government’s promotion of agricultural modernisation through schemes, subsidies and financial support, with which it aims to boost farmers’ incomes and drive adoption of agritech solutions to create a more sustainable and efficient farm sector.
The agritech market was worth $878.1 million in 2024 and is projected to grow to $6.15 billion by 2033, according to IMARC Group, a market research company. This growth will be driven by the rise of precision agriculture, in which technologies such as IoT sensors and drones help farmers optimise inputs and reduce their environmental impact.
Fintech solutions are also gaining traction, offering farmers credit, insurance, and payment tools that enhance financial inclusion. Growing demand for contactless, efficient farming is further accelerating the adoption of automation, robotics, and remote monitoring systems.
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Arya.ag, which has a workforce of 730, reported operating revenue of ₹340 crore in FY24, up 18% from ₹288 crore in FY23, according to it filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings. Storage and warehousing brought in ₹212.8 crore (63% of operating revenue), while interest income from loans rose 27% to ₹55.4 crore. Profit jumped 2.5 times to ₹19 crore over the same period.
Backed by investors such as Blue Earth Capital, Omnivore, Lightrock Growth Fund and HSBC India, Arya.ag has raised about $119 million to date. It competes with companies such as Cropin, Waycool, Farmart, Crofarm, FutureFarms, MKrishi, Samriddhi, Fresh From Farm, Agrostar, Ninjacart, Dehaat, FarMart, BigHaat and Agrim.
Unique challenges, unique solutions
To be sure, India’s agricultural ecosystem is unique, with small, resource-poor farmers and cost-sensitive consumers, which explains why many agritech models from the West don’t apply here, Rao said. He added that the idea is not to replace existing systems overnight but to build trustworthy, scalable infrastructure that works for everyone.
Rao believes public infrastructure like digitised farm ownership or standardised storage data would dramatically amplify the impact. He acknowledged that public digital infrastructure like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has transformed payments, but added that in agriculture, initiatives such as the agristack are still evolving.
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“Governments are beginning to talk about sharing farm-level data, as we saw recently in Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, but progress is slow. That’s why we’ve built our own “micro-stacks”—tokenising commodities, creating digital identities for warehouses, and enabling affordable services,” he added.
“Just as UPI didn’t kill payment startups but empowered them, open agri data will fuel innovation, letting us focus on what we do best while relying on shared systems for the rest,” he said.
