Mahindra Group on Wednesday announced that it has increased its stake in agri-tech start-up Carnot Technologies to around 69 per cent. As part of the round, an attractive ESOP pool for future employees has also been created.
Carnot will use the undisclosed funding to continue developing its technology and expand its team over the next year.
The group also affirmed its plans to make its existing farming-as-a-service vertical, Krish-e, the country’s largest ecosystem of digital products and solutions.
The Krish-e app is part of Mahindra’s digital foray into developing a marketplace that provides a range of services centred around mechanisation and advisory. It is one of the fastest growing apps in the agriculture technology space having amassed over 3 million downloads. The app is also integrated with on-ground activities undertaken in Krish-e’s 100 centres across 16 States.
Digital platform
Ramesh Ramachandran, Sr. Vice-President of Farm Equipment Strategy and Head, Krish-e, said, “This investment signals our strategic commitment to Carnot. They have been at the forefront of building for Bharat and innovating specifically for farmers. Since our last investment in late 2020, they have been our partner in leading the digital product and technology vision for Krish-e and in just under 18 months we have built a digital platform with a big Bharat footprint – including 5,00,000 app users, 4 million rental hours and 4 million acres of farmland. We now deepen the ties and continue building on our strengths”.
Carnot Technologies was founded by IIT Bombay alumni developing the leading agriculture IoT platform Simha (rebranded to Krish-e Rental) which now has over 25,000 tractors, harvesters and sprayers working on over 3 million acres of land each season. The platform is protected by 5 patents.
“The team has also developed the Krish-e app which, through its unique and intuitive farmer-centric design, is helping farmers earn up to ₹15,000 more per acre. In the course of our partnership with M&M, we realised that someone had to understand our farmers, and make products that are innovative, highly cost-conscious and make sense for our farmers. And if it’s not the next generation of engineers and entrepreneurs then who will build them? With this round of investment, we also want to move into top gear, in pursuit of building a great team and a data-driven culture within every function,” Pushkar Limaye, Co-founder & CTO at Carnot, said.
Published on
March 30, 2022
