Established in 2019 by IIT Bombay graduates Amit Kumar and Abhay Singh , Kota-based Eekifoods is an agritech startup which has innovated a proprietary vegetable growing technology to deliver pesticide-free Indian and exotic vegetables and With a dream to develop a maintainable and economically feasible agronomic platform
The agritech startup utilizes hydroponics technique, which involves growing plants without soil and by using nutrient-rich water.
The originators examined various plant growing techniques – from soil-based cultivation to the current coco-peat-based hydroponics for fruit-bearing vegetables prior to zeroing on hydroponics. The squad then built growing chambers, which they asserts is producing crops 20 percent quicker and offers improved management over the taste and nutrition value, and involves fewer labour.
According to him, the developing chambers do not use coco-peat as a growing medium and hence there is no expense associated with it.
By cultivating Indian and exotic vegetables like coriander, tomato, eggplant, cucumber, and bitter gourd at current scenario, Eekifoods is aiming an income of Rs 40 lakh per month by the end of this fiscal year.
About the squad
The co-originators have known each other for the past 12 years and were batchmates at IIT Bombay. At current, Amit regulates and manages the farm setup, farm operations, and is accountable for growing research and development, and Abhay takes charge of the sales, farm automation, and finance of the company.
The startup has 26 team members at present.
Funding and monetisation
In May 2021, Eekifoods lifted Pre-Series A funding from GSF Accelerator. Other financiers in this round consist of Naho Shigeta, Founder and CEO of Infobridge Holdings; Shalin Sanjay Shah, Director at Core91 VC; and a Gulf-based Syndicate.
Active investors Sumit Jain, Country Head of Birdeye; and Dipesh Palod, Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, also took part in the round. The startup claimed it would use the funding for further technology development, scaling operations, and team building.
At current, Eekifoods has one fully operational commercial farm in Bhilwara with a regular monthly revenue of approx. Rs 3.5 lakh. An Additional in Talera is just about to start production, and couple of more industrial farms are in the construction phase in Kota. We presently do commercial farm setups with our farm partners. They put in the preliminary money and we take over the accountability of growing and selling. Eekifoods retails these vegetables directly to high-end retail stores. For every kg delivered, we give about Rs 16/kg (for tomato) to the farm partner in return. For every crop, the return would change,” he says.
The present and the future
The above start up has nearly 300 B2C customers in Kota at current. Eekifoods started trading directly with the customers in Neemuch during the lockdown and to five stores in Jaipur.
Eekifoods strategizes to set up 12 farms by the finish of this financial year and by the next year-end, the startup is aiming to set up near about 50 farms across NCR and Northern India catering to high-end grocery retail stores and is looking forward to a tactical partnership with local vegetable suppliers and sellers.
The total accessible market in India is about $13 billion, as per Eeki’s valuations. the startup is targeting Delhi NCR and major Tier-II, III cities in Rajasthan, namely Kota, Jaipur, Neemuch, Indore, and Udaipur for the coming three years.
Many wholesale retailers and quality vegetable distribution supply chains peek for a reliable supply of chemical-free vegetables at fair prices and that is exactly what this starup provides. Standard vegetables are pesticide-laden and have an unreliable supply. By partnering with eekifoods, the vendors and distributors get greater limits because they are now able to offer consistent shape, quality, and size round the year to the end customers.
The startup is competing with Organic Garden, UrbanKisaan, Simply Fresh, and Nature’s Miracle, which are mostly into exotic leafy vegetables, strawberries, nutraceuticals, and other veggies.
According to one of the founders, the startup’s USP is that it delivers completely residue-free and fresh fruit-bearing vegetables at near typical market prices.With their technology (growing chambers), the cultivating cost is 40 percent lesser for a diversity of Indian fruit-bearing vegetables, in comparision to other coco-peat-based hydroponics technologies.”
Hence, their objective is to demonstrate that their technology can be used to grow crops across India under different climatic conditions and at a much cheaper rate than other hydroponic ventures!