vccircle.com,an epaper, May 5 2011

Efarm will soon raise its second round of funding worth Rs. 5 crore for its IT projects

Click here to open the online news article page

Mumbai Angels invests in Agri consulting company MVS efarm

Mumbai Angels, a group of 120 early-stage investors, has invested an undisclosed amount to acquire 25 per cent stake in Chennai-based MVS Efarm Pvt Ltd, which provides logistic and consulting services to the agriculture sector.

The company will use the fund to expand its operations and benefit farmers across the region of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka during its first phase of operations. Efarm will soon raise its second round of funding worth Rs 5 crore for its IT project.

Efarm was founded in 2007 by Venkat Subramanian, an IIT Kharagpur passout, and his wife Srivalli Krishnan, an MBA. The company has a well-integrated agricultural supply chain platform and provides a combination of technology solutions and on-ground distribution mechanism to enable farmers to reach end-markets. It operates in the B2B space and serves bulk consumers of agri produce such as hotels, caterers, retail chains, food processing industries and vegetable vendors. The company collects agricultural produce from more than 1,500 farmers in Tamil Nadu and has a current turnover of Rs 1.5 crore.

“Agriculture is the most challenging sector in our country and there are good opportunities there for young entrepreneurs like us. At times, people don’t have a clear idea regarding supply chain services. One must work in an integrated way and we prefer to work among farmers with little education – so that they can understand the business model,” said Venkat, the founder and COO of Efarm.