According to him, the industry has lasting problems surrounding price inaccuracies, weighing errors, and opaque transactions with suppliers, buyers and financial institutions. “Our mission is clear: use technology to improve access and build assurance – to provide assurance for farmers and those who serve them,” he told him. Mint In the interview.
Arya.ag is offering an online marketplace for farmers and buyers. This digital platform involves key bottlenecks in procurement and agricultural finance. The company provides tools for warehouse discovery, satellite-based crop monitoring, farm consultation and instant grain quality testing. It also enables real-time warehouse monitoring and blockchain-led product traceability.
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The company supports Farmers Producers Organization (FPO) through stock management, digital credit and market links. Its enabled sealed storage system (IOT) allows farmers to store their produce in sealed units that are not available in warehouses, thus protecting crops from pests, moisture and spoilage. Arya’s Arjun platform also handles end-to-end procurement of agribusiness, supporting efficient, climate-smart and traceable agricultural commerce.
Origin Story
Originally part of the JM Baxi group (known as Arya Agencies) since 1982, Arya.Ag was reorganized in 2013 as part of the 2013 Harvest post-agricultural commercial platform after co-founders Prasanna Rao, Chattanathan Devarajan and Anand Chandra.
The company first digitizes agricultural warehouses. Co-founder and executive director Chandra said India has more than 120,000 such warehouses. “However, there is little visibility in our location, quality or availability. So we have built a platform to help farmers and organize book warehouse spaces, just like we did when we book hotels today. We have digitized 12,000 warehouses,” he said.
Once the product is stored, Arya.ag provides real-time assurance through artificial intelligence (AI) enabled cameras that monitor activity, detect anomalies and provide automatic alerts. This can protect farmers’ produce and help maintain trust.
Providing financing for farmers
The company also connects storage with finance. Using historical crop pricing data, Arya.ag allows farmers to borrow stored goods. Chandra added: “When harvesting, prices are usually the lowest. By waiting for a few months, farmers can get better prices. Our technology allows them to do this without losing liquidity.”
For example, farmers can get a loan within 30 minutes of storing their produce. The system uses quality and market value data to calculate the loan amount and the quote is sent to the farmers in their local language via the application or SMS. Once they approve, the funds will be transferred within minutes.
Later, when farmers were ready to sell, they could choose from multiple buyers on the platform instead of relying on local traders. Rao added: “We can even help bridge short-term finance if needed. Our system clears the loans and passes the additional income to farmers while we take credit risks ourselves.”
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He believes this approach can help farmers avoid distress sales immediately after harvest and get better prices through a wider range of buyers. “It is important that we don't trade goods ourselves, which helps us avoid direct competition with local lenders or merchants. We position ourselves as facilitators, not buyers,” he said.
According to Rao, adoption rates are strong – 99% of spending is digital, and now 94% of customers themselves download their account statements, “a few years ago was unthinkable.” He added: “As my co-founder Anand often says, the key is that technology has to be affordable and has clear value.”
Government's agricultural technology promotion
The agricultural technology sector in India benefits from the government through programmes, subsidies and financial support, which aims to promote farmers’ income and promote the adoption of agricultural technology solutions to create a more sustainable and effective farm sector.
According to market research firm Imarc Group, the Agritech market value in 2024 is $878.1 million and is expected to grow to $6.15 billion by 2033. This growth will be driven by the rise of precision agriculture, where technologies such as IoT sensors and drones can help farmers optimize their inputs and reduce their environmental impact.
Fintech solutions also gain traction, providing enhanced financial inclusion for farmers credit, insurance and payment tools. The growing demand for contactless, efficient farming further accelerates the adoption of automation, robotics and remote monitoring systems.
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Arya.Ag has a workforce of 730 and reported operating income ₹3.4 million in fiscal year 24, compared with ₹According to IT documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (ROC) filings, it was Rs 23 crore in FY23. Storage and warehouse brings ₹212.8 million (63% of operating income), while interest income from loans rose by 27% ₹554 million. Profits jumped 2.5 times ₹190 million in the same period.
To date, approximately $119 million has been raised to date with investors such as Blue Earth Capital, Comprehensive Group, Lightrock Growth Fund and HSBC India. It competes with companies like Cropin, Waycool, Farmart, Crofarm, FutureFarms, Mkrishi, Samriddhi, Fresh Froms, Agrostar, Agrostar, Ninjacart, Dehaat, Dehaat, Farmart, Bighaat, Bighaat and Agrim.
Unique challenges, unique solutions
To be sure, India’s agroecosystem is unique with smaller resource-poor farmers and cost-sensitive consumers, which explains why many agricultural models from the West do not apply here. He added that the idea is not to replace existing systems overnight, but to build a trusted, scalable infrastructure that suits everyone.
Rao believes that public infrastructure such as digital farm ownership or standardized storage of data will greatly expand its impact. He acknowledged that public digital infrastructure such as Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has changed payments, but added that in agriculture, initiatives such as Agristack are still evolving.
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He added: “As we have seen recently in Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the government has started talking about shared farm-level data, but progress is slow. That's why we have built our own “microstacks” that use goods, create digital identities for warehouses and create digital identities for affordable services.”
“Just just as UPI didn’t kill payment startups, it empowered them, open Agri data will drive innovation and let us focus on the best work when relying on the rest of the shared systems,” he said.
