Agri Fintech KiVi Closes Seed Round, Positions To Serve The Farmgate Ecosystem With Credit, Commerce And Distribution
Summary
KiVi is incubated at IIT Madras Research Park and stands for kisan vikas - farmer development.Sharing details about the seed round and the way forward, Mr. Joby C O, Founder & CEO said, We are excited to welcome our first institutional investors who share KiVis vision to make agriculture a livelihood of choice by enabling credit, commerce and distribution to the farmgate ecosystem.Apart from Mr. Joby, who is a veteran in rural leading, KiVis founding team includes Padmakumar K, Rajendra Kumar, Salil Nair and Manoj Ramaswamy who bring rich execution experience in rural lending, agri commerce, rural technologies and fund raise.The farmgate ecosystem comprises farmer households and agri entrepreneurs such as input retailers, output aggregators, farmer producer organizations and equipment renters. Seasonal cash flows, absence of formal income proof and land ownership proof, fragmented landholding, inability of traditional lenders to build a cost-effective delivery model and participate in the adjacent commerce opportunities and are the key gaps that KiVi is addressing.Joby further added, KiVi enables timely, affordable and scale-based credit as well as commerce from the farmgate to the processor. Further, KiVi has partnered with leading lending institutions.KiVi is operational in Tamil Nadu and Bihar and has till date enabled 1,500+ farmers to access credit, launched MSME loan offerings to agri entrepreneurs and enabled commerce and trade finance in commodities including wheat, paddy & maize., said, saidThe investment will help KiVi to build a robust technology platform for scale-up, increase the last-mile presence across many districts, strengthen the product and risk capabilities and obtain an NBFC license. Joby concluded.KiVi (operated by Agrosperity Tech Solutions Private Limited) is an agri fintech that aims to make farming a livelihood of choice by enabling credit, commerce and distribution to the farmgate ecosystem. KiVi employs a unique phygital model that combines the power of technology with last mile transaction capability to deliver a seamless experience to customers, lending partners and corporate buyers.