Aquaconnect, a platform for aquaculture farmers, has raised $1.1 million (approx ₹7 crore) in seed funding led by Omnivore and HATCH. The funding will be utilize by the Chennai-based Aquaconnect to accelerate the growth of its farmer network, launch new SaaS tools for the aquaculture ecosystem, roll out deep tech improvements on its platform FarmMOJO, and push monetisation on its omnichannel marketplace, reported Yourstory.
Also, post fund transfer, Reihem Roy from Omnivore will be joining Aquaconnect’s board to support the company’s growth strategy.
Rajamanohar Sundaram (Raj), Co-founder and CEO, Aquaconnect, said, “The funding will be used for team expansion, enhancing our AI-enabled platform offering, and increasing our omnichannel marketplace fulfilment capabilities. We aim to reach 15,000 shrimp and fish farmers across India and Indonesia by December 2020. Omnivore and HATCH understand aquaculture, so they are perfect investors for our first institutional funding round.”
Aquaconnect was founded by Rajamanohar Sundaram, Sanjai Kumar and Shanmuga Sundara Raj. It is an AI-enabled platform that integrates the network of aquaculture farmers in Asia with predictive SaaS tools for farm management, along with an omnichannel marketplace.
Aquaconnect helps farmers boost their revenue by predicting diseases of animals and suggesting ways to enhance water quality. The platform has a mobile-based application called FarmMOJO.
Mark Kahn, Managing Partner of Omnivore, said, “Aquaconnect is well set to catalyse the Blue Revolution 2.0 in India and across Asia. Also, the government of India is ramping up support for the aquaculture sector, carving out a separate Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairy as well as launching the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY). We believe Raj and his team are building one of the most promising agritech startups globally, and we look forward to the exciting journey ahead.”
After the launch of FarmMOJO, Aquaconnect has added value to the lives of over 3,000 farmers across India and Indonesia, and is also planning to expand across South Asia and Southeast Asia.
As per the company’s description, the FarmMOJO application has benefited thousands of aqua farmers spread across 750 farms as of today.
Furthermore, being one of its kind startup, AquaConnect coordinates with local communities residing close to the farm to collect water samples from freshwater ponds and deposit them in designated laboratories.
The startup also links up the farm network to an omnichannel marketplace, where the farmers can interact and transact with hatcheries, labs, equipment manufacturers, feed producers, certification bodies, exporters, insurance companies, and banks.