Agriculture is an important pillar in Bangladesh's socio-economic story. Despite the gradual rise of industrialization and the service sector over the past decades, the sector remains a dominant force in the country's economy.
In 2021-22, agriculture contributed 11.66% to the nation's total GDP. In 2022, the sector employed 45.3% of the total workforce in the country. It supplies raw materials and provides backward linkages to a long list of industries. Agriculture makes village economies work across Bangladesh.
Despite its outsized importance, major challenges the agriculture sector faces have intensified over the past few decades, such as productivity, access to finance, market, and information, wastage across the value chain, lack of technology adoption, etc. Exodus of human capital from the sector due to the changing economic landscape has exacerbated these challenges. Declining arable land and natural resources have added to that challenge.
A small number of agritech startups are seeking to develop solutions in response to these challenges in the sector. These companies are introducing financial and insurance solutions for farmers, efficient input and output market linkages, information services, precision agriculture, and a host of other solutions.
iFarmer, one of the early agritech players, started as an agri-fintech company, providing low-cost credit facilities to farmers by connecting farmers with retail and institutional investors. The company has since evolved into a full-stack player with operations in output linkage, input linkage, and advisory. It is one of the highest-funded startups in the vertical with over $3.5 million in total funding.
Adorsho Pranisheba, one of the players in the space, has developed an IoT-enabled solution to monitor cattle health in real time.
Agroshift, a B2B player in the output market linkages segment, takes orders from B2B customers and micro-retailers, collects produce from farmers through its collection centers, and distributes directly to customers.
Fashol, another player in the output linkage vertical, has built a growing B2B business.
Wegro is another player in the financial services space, connecting investors with farmers.
As the agritech ecosystem matures, players are likely to expand horizontally across agritech segments to own the end-to-end relationship with farmers. A few companies have already started working toward this ambition.
Grocery and retail players have also entered the space. Chaldal, the leader in online grocery, now has a meaningful output market linkage play under its CDVN segment.
Traditional agribusiness companies have also started paying attention. ACI, one of the prominent players in the agribusiness space, has launched an app that combines commerce and information.
Agritech has seen accelerated activity over the last two years. The number of companies has increased, and the vertical has attracted growing investor interest. In this article, we put together a list of top agri-tech companies in Bangladesh to offer a general understanding of the sector.
We used funding and overall market perception to measure the top startups. However, this list is not a ranking and the companies are not organized in any particular order.
On to Bangladesh’s top agri-tech startups.
iFarmer connects farmers with capital, knowledge, inputs, and markets. Founded in 2018, the company started by addressing the challenge of access to capital, a common challenge smallholder farmers face in Bangladesh, by connecting farmers with retail and institutional investors.
While started with finance and inputs, iFarmer has expanded into several other verticals, including supply chain, input, and agri-machineries, and has evolved into a full-stack agri-tech player in Bangladesh.
Fashol.com is a wholesale agriculture products marketplace for retailers. The company collects agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables from different parts of the country, brings them to its distribution center, sorts them using an in-house sorting method, and then delivers them to partner retailers directly at their doorsteps. It provides free delivery and claims its prices are 5%-10% lower than the market rate.
Founded: 2022
Founders: Qazi Bouland, Diptha Saha, and Rameez Hoque
Agroshift is an agri-tech platform that enables farmers to sell their products to businesses and consumers. The company says its ultimate goal is building technology solutions to transform the fresh food supply chain and improve the lives of farmers, small businesses, and consumers through which farmers will get fair prices, and consumers will get fresher and safer products. The company says it is building a tech-enabled supply chain merging the physical and digital worlds for a “phy-gital” business model which takes care of the demand aggregation, sourcing, and delivery.
Founded: 2021
Founders: Md Mahmudur Rahman, Md. Alvi Rahman
WeGro provides financing support to farmers by collecting funds from retail and institutional investors. The company says it usually purchases high-quality agricultural inputs with those funds, loans these inputs to the farmers, and shares the eventual profit.
Simply put, WeGro connects individual and institutional investors with farmers and their agricultural projects. The company says it simplifies investing in agriculture. WeGro promises 18-22% returns on investment while guaranteeing principal protection. Investors also have the option to insure their investment against any calamities.
Founded: 2022
Founders: Tasvir Faheem and Nurunnassa Choudhury
InsureCow offers a comprehensive platform for cattle insurance and well-being monitoring, providing services such as cattle registration, claim management, data management, and visualization, insurance product designing and underwriting, and a payment gateway for all stakeholders. Insure Cow primarily serves farmers, SMEs, NGOs, insurers, and financial institutions.
Founded: 2019
Founders: Fida Haq
Adorsho PraniSheba provides IoT-based cattle farm management and monitoring software. The company says it helps marginal cattle farmers with IoT-based cattle identification, well-being monitoring, insurance, access to finance, crowdfunding, online veterinary services, and forward market linkage support.
Founded 2023
Founders: Rashedul Hoque and Shakil Ahmed
Agriventure provides farmers with access to finance, comprehensive training, high-quality agricultural inputs, and machinery. The company says its training program equips “farmers with insights into supply and demand, enabling them to make well-informed choices.” Similar to several agri-fintech players, Agriventure connects farmers with retail investors. The company also helps farmers to sell their produce to retailers. The company claims to have more than 1000 enlisted farmers on its platform, facilitated more than $10,000 in funding, more than 200 active farmers, and more than 10 active retailers on its platform.
Founded: 2017
Founder: Abu Darda
Parmeeda procures agricultural commodities like vegetables, fish, fruits, and chicken from registered farmers, transports commodities from farm to warehouse, sort-grade-pack, and delivers to consumers and businesses. The company has developed a supply chain-focused mobile application, where farmers can register themselves as suppliers by providing basic farm and production input, quoting the produce into the app, and making supply schedules. Farmers can also receive production technical support via graphics, text, and video.
Founded: 2019
Founders: Muhammad Shahin
Manu Farms operates Poultry Manager, an integrated poultry management mobile application that connects the various poultry supply chain actors.
The app is also connected with IOT devices planted in the poultry farm, providing real-time data on temperature, humidity, light density, ammonia Gas level, etc. Additionally, the Poultry Manager connects various stakeholders across the poultry supply chain, including vet service providers, input sellers, and poultry buyers, and also connects poultry farmers directly with their customers.
Founded: 2023
Founded: Imtiaz Farhan Bin Habib and Khan Muhammad Nafiul Akbar
Agronochain is a comprehensive post-harvest solution that empowers farmers by addressing key challenges in the agricultural supply chain, such as access to market, warehouse, and finance.
The company says it bundles storage facilities for post-harvest produce, direct market linkages, and accessible financing options for farmers. Farmers store their produce in Agronochain's warehouses, receive digital receipts, and can use their stored products as collateral to access finance from financial institutions. This approach helps farmers sell their produce at better prices by connecting them directly with buyers, bypassing middlemen, and ensuring fair pricing.
Note: This is an evolving list and will be updated when we have new information. If you have feedback or information to share regarding the list, email us at info@futurestartup.com
Note: Part of the introduction is borrowed from this whitepaper, which was jointly produced by ULAB CES and Future Startup.
