The agritech industry has grown leaps and bounds in a short period, with several startups venturing into the space. However, they require guidance, mentorship, and access to resources to build a viable business. Against this backdrop, nurture.farm, India’s leading agritech company is on a quest to build a resilient and sustainable farming ecosystem through tech-led solutions and has launched its incubation programme – Catalyst – to help agritech startups sustain themselves and expand further.
nurture.farm Catalyst will help agritech startups collaborate with key stakeholders across the agricultural ecosystem, gain capital for sustenance, test their products or solutions at scale, and gain access to infrastructural, knowledge and human resources. The programme will offer its incubatees a wide spectrum of support to enable them and accelerate their growth journey. This incubation programme focuses on nurturing the growth stage, pre-revenue, seed-funded, or angel-funded startups. It intends to support, collaborate and champion these startups as they break new grounds.
By partnering with nurture.farm, the startups can benefit from its experience, tap into their rural network, leverage industry connections, and the goodwill the company has garnered over time.
Speaking on the new initiative, Dhruv Sawhney, Business Head & COO of nurture.farm said, “Agricultural productivity is at an all-time low. Food security is at risk, with an ever-growing population set to reach 10 billion by 2050. In addition, pests, diseases and natural calamities destroy more than 40 per cent of annual production, thus resulting in an annual loss of over USD 108 billion due to damaged or lost crops.”
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“nurture.farm has built digital highways to connect the heartlands of India by building robust technology platforms, agri e-commerce marketplaces, market linkages, supply chain networks, advisory services, financial solutions and shared economy models. The need of the hour is for the industry to come together, pool resources, exchange information and share learnings to foster growth and scale quickly,” Sawhney added.
“As we look at the various problems in the agri industry, we realise that we need to pave the way for other agritech startups to drive innovation and change. These budding startups can leverage our ecosystem, test their solution offerings at scale to establish a product-market fit and help solve the challenges for the farmers, the agri ecosystem and the planet. The time to act is now, and our incubation programme ‘Catalyst’ is another step toward achieving the same. We need to start focusing on fostering sustainable agricultural practices and work to integrate technology in this sector to solve the problems,” he further added.
Aspiring startups can apply for the programme on nurture.farm’s website. Its knowledge partners include organisations like UPL, NPP, Advanta and Decco. An experienced panel of experts from the agricultural industry will review each application, mentor startups and help them grow. The programme will accept entries until March 31, 2023.
(The story is based on a press statement made by nurture.farm.)
