Vijayawada-based AquaExchange helps aquaculture farmers leverage technology to increase crop yields, mitigate crop risks and combat rising input costs.
IoT solutions provider to aquaculture farmers, AquaExchange has raised USD 6 million in Series A funding led by Ocean 14 Capital with participation from existing investors including Endiya Partners and Accion Venture Labs, the company announced on Friday. The funding will be deployed to scale adoption of the company’s full-stack business model including farm automation, crop financing and harvest procurement. The company also aims to focus on a few international markets for device exports.
“We plan to refine and scale our unique reinforcement framework, wherein farmers are immediately incentivized for sustainable practices through reduced input costs and higher offtake prices, emphasizing our commitment to sustainable practices in the industry. With this funding round, we aim to equip many more aquaculture farmers with the right technology to reduce costs and increase productivity while enabling global protein sustainability,” said Pavan Kosaraju, Founder, Aqua Exchange.
Vijayawada-based AquaExchange helps aquaculture farmers leverage technology to increase crop yields, mitigate crop risks and combat rising input costs. Its product portfolio includes power management (PowerMon) and feed automation (AquaBot) devices. The PowerMon enables power monitoring and aeration control through a smartphone app while AquaBot is the mobile auto-feeder enabling farm automation.
Piers Lakin, Senior Associate of Ocean 14 Capital, said, “In a short period of time, the company managed to deploy technology across a significant part of the Indian aquaculture landscape, both helping to deliver the data, insights and control that can help stabilize customers production while also developing an end-to-end solution providing access to inputs, offtake and finance.”
According to the government’s investment promotion agency, India is the third largest fish-producing country globally with an 8 per cent share in global production. The market contributes around 1.09 per cent to the country’s GVA and more than 6.72 per cent to agricultural GVA.
Moreover, India is also the 4th largest exporter of fish and fisheries products with a growth in exports of 26.73 per cent in terms of quantity between FY22 and FY23. The sector supports the livelihood of over 30 million people in India.
Importantly, the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying runs Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) for the development of the fisheries sector with an investment of Rs 20,050 crore for the FY21-FY25 period.
Source: Financial Express
