Team Eeki

The round also witnessed participation from Icebreaker, O2 Angels Network, Arjun Vaidya of Dr Vaidya’s, Kunal Shah of Cred, Harsh Shah, Ramakant Sharma, Abhishek Kejeriwal, Anupam Surana, Abhishek Chaudhary, Mandeep Singh, Cyrus Sahukar, Spectrum Impact, Vivek Khanduja and Others.

The agri-tech startup aims to utilize the funds to expand its geographical presence, further technology development, increase the SKUs and on-board top talent

Agritech start-up EekiFoods announced today that it has raised $2 million in a round led by Avaana Capital with participation from Better Capital and Icebreaker VC. Other key investors include Kunal Shah, Founder CRED; Ramakant Sharma, Founder Livspace; Abhishek Kejeriwal, Founder Kutumb; and, Harsh Shah, Fynd Founder, O2 Angels Network and Gopinath K, Eeki IoT head. Existing investor Spectrum Impact also participated in this round.

EekiFoods is an agritech startup that grows high-quality, residue-free Indian staple vegetables through their patent-pending Plant Growth System. It will utilize the funds to grow its team, invest in technology, and expand in other topographies in India. EekiFoods had earlier raised funding from GSF Accelerator and marquee individual investors like Naho Shigeta, Founder & CEO, Infobridge Holdings; Shalin Sanjay Shah, Director, Core91 VC; Anand Shah, Ola Electric Co-founder; Dinesh Agarwal, CEO, IndiaMart; and a Gulf based Fat-Engine.

EekiFoods was founded in Dec 2018 by IIT Bombay Alumni Abhay Singh and Amit Kumar, with a vision to bring the next evolution of vegetable cultivation. They grow the best quality of Indian staple vegetables at local market prices. 

Plant Growth System technology has been developed over a period of 3 years and innovation lies in creating the ideal zoenvironment for roots of the plants. The vegetables are residue-free, of consistent shape, size and color, nutritionally fortified and available all throughout the year from a local farm. And most importantly, while the technology saves 80% water and the yield is at least 300% more than conventional farming, the vegetables grown are profitable at market prices.

EekiFoods is partnering with Corporates, HNIs, Investors and local businesses to setup farms in Kota, Jaipur, on the outskirts of Mumbai-Pune, NCR and across Pan-India. This partnership helps bring in the capital to setup futuristic Eeki-farms on any underutilised barren or fertile land and the farm is then completely managed and operated by Eeki. It becomes an asset backed investment where leveraging Eeki’s technology and operations, partners make regular returns for 10-15 years while saving the climate.

Amit and Abhay have built a team of 50 young and passionate professionals and 2 of the existing investors have also joined Eeki full time. With this fundraise and expansion of farms, Eeki is actively looking to hire the best engineers from the domain of chemical engineering, mechanical engineering and electronics .

Anjali Bansal of Avaana Capital said, "We are excited to partner with Amit and Abhay on their journey to transform Indian agriculture. Grounded in research and innovation, the Eeki team has proven their ability to build climate-resilient food systems in a highly resource-efficient manner, while providing commercial gains to partner farmers. The company's advanced proprietary technology enables them to produce and sell high-quality daily vegetables at affordable costs, and we are confident about the team's ability to scale from here to create a large business."

Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital said, “Eeki is a big bold idea backed by patent-pending innovation that has the potential to change the food chain in India. We seek founders like Amit and Abhay and we are fortunate to be partnering with Eeki from group zero.”

Mrunal Jhaveri of Icebreaker, “The EekiFoods team struck me with their excellent product-market fit, as seen by the rapid expansion of their customer base in a really short period of time. Comparatively to other coco-peat-dependent hydroponic growers, Eeki's revolutionary vegetable production system can reduce growing costs by 50%.With more Indian companies gaining experience in the Agritech sector, I believe Eeki has a market-winning product on its hands, and I'm thrilled to be a part of their quest. I really anticipate watching them realize their full potential.”

Rajesh Ranjan of O2 Angels Network said, “O2 Angels Network is supportive of emerging technologies and our Angels are excited about supporting the founders of Eeki who are revolutionizing the cost-effective food production model through their patent-pending technology.”

Mirik Gogri of Spectrum Impact said “We are very happy to see the progress that Eeki has made since our initial investment and we are thrilled to support them further.”

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