Agri start-up Utkal Tubers has raised $4.6 million (Rs 30 cr) from CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund and Zephyr Peacock India Fund. The early-stage start-up, a potato seeds company, completed a year of operation in March 2017, producing 1,000 tonnes of potato seeds in 2016. This year (2017), it is targeting 5,000 tonnes.
The start-up proposes to scale up the availability of local varieties through facilities that it has set up in Karnataka. It is also in the process of setting up facilities in Odisha, Gujarat, and Punjab.
The investment marks CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund’s first investment in the agri sector. George Thomas, founder of the fund said, “We are exploring start-ups in the food and agri business. We have raised a corpus of $10.8 million (Rs 70 crore) and will raise the balance $4.6 m (Rs 30 crore) by the end of June.”
CapAleph aims to deploy the fund over a two-year period in five to six start-ups that address issues related food productivity, wastage, and water scarcity, among other issues. As per George, the problem with potato seed production in India is its restriction to Punjab and it’s unavailability in states like Chattisgarh, Bihar, and Odisha which lack a seed production base.
He added that CapAleph has taken controlling interest in Utkal with this investment, with the hope of creating a good franchise for potato seeds, improve seed quality and variety in seed deficient states. Going forward, the fund plans to invest in a start-up that focusses on hardy crops such as millets, jowar and bajra in its next funding round.
Utkal Tubers has been incubated by Zephyr Peacock last October. Zephyr Peacock is the India-focused PE fund of US-based Zephyr Management. Last April, the start-up also signed a memorandum of understanding with Odisha to set up a research lab for tissue culture development and development farms in rural areas for seed multiplication.
Source: Inc42
