Digivridhi Fintech startup for dairy farmers raises 3.1 mill USD
Digivriddhi Technologies Private Limited, DGV a Dairy Industry focused neo-banking startup, has raised $3.1 million pre-series A round from Info Edge Ventures and Omnivore. Through its assisted digital platform, DGV has chosen to focus on India’s 75 million dairy farmers, providing them access to formal banking and world class financial services.
Ragavan Venkatesan, Founder and CEO, DGV, said they are delighted to welcome Info Edge Ventures and Omnivore to lead their first institutional round. “Info Edge Ventures experience in scaling digital marketplaces and Omnivore’s deep experience in Agtech will allow us to create an unmatched full-service platform for dairy farmers.”
Kitty Agarwal, Partner, Info Edge Ventures, said the Indian dairy industry is the largest dairy market globally at $145 billion, engaging more than 75 million dairy farmers. “Despite the huge size of this industry and its importance to our livelihoods, dairy farmers lack access to basic financial products and services and even struggle to access cash conveniently. DGV is building a neo-banking platform for these dairy farmers by digitizing the entire payment stack using Aadhaar, National Payment Switch and Micro ATM technology with plans to build various financial products customized to credit, insurance and other needs of these farmers. We are very excited to partner with Ragavan who is extremely passionate about bettering the lives of these dairy farmers and bringing much needed financial inclusion to them.
Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner, Omnivore, said they would be hard pressed to find an entrepreneur better suited or equipped, than Ragavan to take on a problem of this magnitude and complexity. “We are excited to partner with Ragavan in his mission to provide class leading financial services to the 100 million stakeholders in India’s dairy sector.”
Shalini Warrier, Executive Director and Business Head, Retail, Federal Bank, said Federal Bank’s partnership with DGV is another step towards expanding financial inclusion in the country. “Under this arrangement, we are providing API Banking services across payments, liabilities and relevant asset products to dairy farmers in Gujarat. DGV’s execution model is unique and aids re-imagining of financial access to farmers. We intend to replicate this model in other parts of the country, and are confident that this collaboration with DGV, will revolutionize the dairy neo-banking space.”
DGV is currently working with some of India’s leading co-operatives dairy union, and their respective milk co-operative societies and farmers, by providing them access to payments, liabilities and asset products through its partnership with Federal Bank. The Indian $145 billion dairy sector is amongst the largest in the world; it contributes over 4% of GDP, 25% of AgriGDP and engages over 100 million stakeholders.