Mumbai Angels Backs Agritech Startup RuKart in Seed Funding Round

RuKart will utilize the finding amount to build its marketing and sales teams, scaleup operations, and expand its manufacturing unit.

Mumbai Angels, a premier platform for private investments, has invested in Mumbai-based Agritech startup, RuKart. While the capital amount remains undisclosed, RuKart will leverage the funds to build its marketing and sales teams, scaleup operations, and expand its manufacturing unit. With the low-cost and easy-to-maintain, water-based cooling storage device called Subjee Cooler, the founders, all of them alumni from IIT Bombay, aspire to eradicate poverty in accordance with UN's sustainable development goals (SD goal 1), by making available affordable and clean energy alternatives (SD goal 7), and generating accelerated economic growth (SD goal 8) locally.

Nandini Mansinghka, CEO of Mumbai Angels, said, “Agriculture is not just integral to our economy but also for every individual, making it an industry that must be the priority at all times. RuKart is on a mission to minimize post-harvest loss and unsustainable practices in the flower, fruit, and vegetable segment. Not only has RuKart been incredibly capital efficient, but it also prioritizes innovation, sustainability, and technology. We are confident that our funding will allow the company to grow further and achieve its goals.”

“We at RuKart are looking to develop an economical and profitable, and environmentally sustainable farm ecosystem for small plot holders growing Fruit/Vegetable/Flower in less than 0.5 acres of land through an affordable and decentralized green innovation – the Subjee Cooler. RuKart’s mission is to bring down the post-harvest loss in the Fruit, Vegetable, and Flower segment from the current level of 30% to less than 5% in the developing world by 2030,” said the founders, Gunavant Nehete, Sharayu Kulkarni & Vikash Jha.

RuKart was launched by VikashJha with his IIT Bombay collegemates - Sharayu Kulkarni and GunvantNehete, who bootstrapped RuKart Technologies (rukart.org) in May 2019. They developed an affordable, recurring-cost-free Green storage technology, Subjee Cooler, a device that is independent of electricity, solar power, and diesel for its operation, all it needs is 20 liters of water per day. In the last 40 months, RuKart sold 800+ Subjee Coolers across 10 states. Initially, the startup started with a brick model of Subjee Cooler and with rigorous field-level installations across different geographies that also included regular follow-ups for end users. Today the Agritech startup also offers portable and mobile models.

Mumbai Angels, India’s premier platform for private investment (a part of 360 ONE, earlier known as IIFL Wealth & Asset Management), holds an AUM of USD 130 Mn and a 200+ strong portfolio spanning a wide range of sectors, such as Technology, Consumer, Life Sciences, DefenseTech, SpaceTech, EV, AgriTech, FinTech, EdTech, Gaming, and Content, etc. Of the overall portfolio, the platform has exited/secured the next round of funding for 100+ of them. The platform has 750+ investors spread across 70+ Global and Indian cities.

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