Dvara E-Dairy Solutions raises $2 million in pre-series A funding

To foray into newer geographies, enabiling to scale up operations and investment in technologies for better optimisation

Dvara E-Dairy Solutions Pvt Ltd, an agri-fintech company has raised $2 million in a Pre-Series A round of funding from Axilor, an early-stage seed fund, and Dvara Venture Studio. The company has been incubated at the Dvara Venture Studio of Dvara Holdings (formerly Dvara Trust).

Since inception in 2019, Dvara E-Dairy is focussing on solving the small and marginal dairy farmers problem by building an ecosystem platform and deploying new-age technologies that enable access to suitable financial and cattle management services. Its Surabhi platform provides comprehensive financial and cattle management solutions to small and medium dairy farmers. It also enables financial services institutions and value chain companies to make informed decisions in relation to the dairy industry, the company said in a statement.

Growth plans

Having impacted over 150,000 farmers across seven states and tailored over 100 partnerships, this investment by Axilor will further accelerate Dvara E-Dairy’s growth plans into newer geographies, enabling it to scale up operations and investment in technology for better optimisation.

“Dvara E-Dairy Solutions empowers small dairy farmers with preventive & primary care for their cattle and enhances financial inclusion by leveraging new-age technologies. The innovative solution helps financial services companies with accurate reports to underwrite cattle activities and achieve scale. We are delighted to have Axilor as a partner with us in this journey and are confident that this investment will propel us forward in our mission to enhance the livelihoods of millions of small and medium dairy farmers across the country,” said Ravi K.A, CEO, Dvara E-Dairy Solutions.

Ganapathy Venugopal, Cofounder and CEO of Axilor, said, “India’s dairy economy is worth over $140 billion. Despite its size and impact on farmers’ livelihood, the sector uses little technology. Cattle farmers have no means to measure and monitor the health of their cattle and often have very poor financial access. E-Dairy, through its technology, can play a significant role in ascertaining identity, improving cattle health and enhancing financial access to cattle farmers. We are excited to partner with E-Dairy in their journey to become the pre-eminent platform for cattle farmers in India.”

Samir Shah, Executive Vice-Chair & Co-founder, Dvara Holdings, said, “Dvara Venture Studio has been focussed on incubating ventures that help address market failures in financial inclusion at scale. We are delighted to partner with Axilor and its team to help take Dvara E-Dairy to the next level using its proprietary bovine AI-based facial recognition tools and the digital finance platform to help 90 million-plus smallholder cattle farmers in India.”

As part of its Surabhi platform, Dvara E-Dairy has created multiple solutions. These include Surabhi ID, technology to uniquely identify each cattle using muzzle images; Surabhi Score for Financial Access (SSFA) for digital assessment of the cattle and provides cattle specific recommendations for financial services institutions and dairy farmers and Dvara Surabhi — a DoItYourself (DIY) mobile application for the farmers to know the cattle’s health status as an indicator, within 60 seconds. Dvara Surabhi Loan – Surabhi Score + Credit score to underwrite cattle activities and borrower. Tailored loan products for dairy farmers to buy cattle or to maintain cattle basis the Surabhi Score, the company said.