28 June 2023, India: Yara Growth Ventures has invested in the Omnivore Agritech & Climate Sustainability Fund, which today announced its first close at USD 150 million. Omnivore funds agri-food tech startups across India and Southeast Asia. Co-investors alongside Yara Growth Ventures include sovereign wealth funds, development finance institutions, foundations, family offices, and other corporate strategic investors.
Omnivore was founded in 2011 by Mark Kahn and Jinesh Shah to fund Indian startups building the future of agriculture and food systems. Omnivore pioneered agri-tech investing in India, and over the past decade has backed over 40 startups which are making farming more profitable, resilient, sustainable, and climate-proof. Omnivore raised USD 82 million for its second fund, which had a final close in April 2019. Some of Omnivore’s portfolio companies include DeHaat, Arya, Stellapps, Reshamandi, Ecozen, Aquaconnect, and Pixxel.
According to Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner at Omnivore, “Our new fund will have a sharper focus on catalyzing climate action in agriculture by funding startups addressing climate mitigation and climate adaptation. We are grateful to our investors who share Omnivore’s vision of making India an agri-tech superpower and improving the lives of smallholder farmers globally.”
“The startup ecosystem in India is highly dynamic. We see great entrepreneurial talent addressing the resilience and environmental impact of the agri-food sector and various challenges in the supply chains,” says Dr. Björn Heinz, Investment Director at Yara Growth Ventures. “Omnivore has been a trailblazer in the Indian agri-tech venture capital investment scene. Partnering with their team will help us gather important insights and learnings as we develop our activities in Asia.”
“Our close relationship with Omnivore will help us identify potential disruptors in our industry for collaboration and joint experimentation,” adds Sanjiv Kanwar, Country Manager for Yara India. “Yara is eager to collaborate for innovative agricultural inputs and digital solutions to bring novel solutions to our customers.”
As a leading crop nutrition company in India, Yara offers a diverse product portfolio of crop nutrition solutions. At the same time, many new entrants tackle supply chain inefficiencies or enable smallholder farm financing. For crop input providers this offers possibilities for both, joint business model and product innovation, which is already being addressed by Yara India’s outlets, the Yara Crop Nutrition Centers.
