Participated · Series C · Jan 2021

Cropin describes itself as the world’s largest deployed AI platform for food and agriculture, offering an AI-powered decision-support system for farmers and agribusinesses. Its core product, FIRST Potato, integrates crop-specific intelligence, real-time field data from sensors, satellite imagery, weather stations, IoT devices, Cropin’s proprietary data models, and predictive analytics to deliver plot-specific daily advisories. The platform helps farmers optimize irrigation, input usage, and residue management to adopt regenerative practices without compromising yield or quality, improving soil health and reducing environmental footprint. Cropin has secured a €700,000 AI deal under EIT Food’s Impact Funding Framework to scale the FIRST Potato deployment across Europe. Planned activities include scientific validation on pilot farms in Denmark and commercial pilots with two potato processors in Germany and the UK, in partnership with Aarhus University. The company is actively engaging in strategic commercial partnerships and is in advanced discussions with several UK and European agri-food brands, expecting to close multiple pilots before the end of the current financial year. Cropin offers an intelligent agriculture cloud platform (Cropin Cloud) and a suite of AI, machine-learning and remote-sensing SaaS solutions that help agribusinesses digitize operations from farm to fork. The company provides actionable, near–real-time farm data and predictive intelligence across crop types and geographies. Cropin reports partnerships with 250+ organizations, has digitized over 16 million acres, reached nearly 7 million farmers, and built intelligence for 400+ crops and 10,000+ crop varieties in 56 countries. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Bangalore, Cropin focuses on making farms and harvests traceable, predictable, and sustainable. The company plans to expand Cropin Cloud’s capabilities, invest in go-to-market efforts, and develop next-generation predictive intelligence through Cropin AI Labs. Cropin says the new funding will support regional and industry expansion and solutions that address sustainable agriculture and global food security. CropIn offers SaaS and data solutions—notably SmartFarm (farm and agronomy management) and SmartRisk (machine-learning predictive analytics)—that help agri-enterprises improve efficiency, traceability, productivity, and sustainability across crop value chains. SmartRisk combines computer vision, deep learning, multispectral imagery, field scouting data, and hyperlocal weather to analyze over 388 crops and nearly 9,500 variants across trillions of data points. The company reports SmartRisk has processed more than 160 million hectares, has impacted 13 million acres and 4 million farmers to date, and could potentially reach 70 million farmers in the next 3–5 years. Smallholder farmers served by CropIn’s platforms have seen crop-yield increases of nearly 25% in the first year after adopting recommended practices. CropIn is investing the new capital to deepen AI capabilities, continue innovating SmartRisk, and expand globally—recently opening an Amsterdam office and hiring local leaders to drive growth in Europe. With partnerships spanning development finance institutions and government entities in 52 countries, CropIn focuses on digitization, predictability, traceability, financial inclusion, climate-smart agriculture, and sustainability. CropIn provides SmartFarm, a ground-to-cloud technology platform for plot-level farm management that is deployed through agribusinesses' field agents to enable B2B2F operations. The company also develops a machine-learning-based risk product called SmartRisk. It currently monitors about 3 million acres across 2 million farmers and serves 180+ customers, including large agribusinesses, banks, government bodies and development agencies, across 29 countries. CropIn plans to scale its platform in India and globally to monitor more than 10 million actively monitored acres across 7 million farmers. The company is co-founded by Krishna Kumar, Kunal Prasad and Chittaranjan Jena and is based in Bengaluru. Financially, the startup has raised a total of $12M to date. CropIn Technology Solutions is a Bengaluru-based agri-tech startup founded in 2010 by Krishna Kumar that provides a cloud-based software platform to help farmers track produce and consignments. Its offering includes enterprise resource planning and business intelligence with a built-in traceability system and tools to manage the field workforce. The platform collaborates with participants across the supply chain to monitor the status of farm produce. CropIn plans to invest the recent funding in technology, data science and predictive technologies to detect and predict crops in different regions. The company has raised about $4 million to date; the current pre-Series A amount was undisclosed. In August 2016 it raised $2 million from Denmark’s Sophia Investment ApS in a transaction that valued the company at $12 million.

Led · Equity · Jul 2014

BRCK makes a physically robust mobile WiFi hotspot that connects to multiple networks and is described as a back-up generator for the internet. The device was designed by the same Nairobi team behind Ushahidi, Crowdmap and the iHub. The company plans to use new funding to expand operations, increase manufacturing of inventory, develop new device designs and broaden distribution across the African continent and globally. BRCK previously raised over US$172,000 on Kickstarter in 2013 and followed with an additional US$1.2 million investment. Most recently BRCK raised US$3 million from a group of international investors. Named investors include former AOL executives Jean and Steve Case, TED, Swiss-based MKS Alternative Investments, Synergy Energy and Jim Sorenson. BRCK builds a versatile mobile router that functions as a backup internet generator, intelligently hopping between Ethernet, Wi‑Fi and available 3G/4G networks. The device includes an internal battery that can run for about eight hours when AC power fails. BRCK’s product is positioned to address unreliable connectivity across Africa and other developing regions, with a stated mission to bring internet access to billions in emerging markets. The company gained early traction with a successful Kickstarter campaign and remains independent of Ushahidi. BRCK currently employs 11 people. The team says the recent funding will help the company scale its hardware and deployment efforts across target markets. BRCK is a hardware project from the Ushahidi team that builds a battery-backed mobile router designed to connect users to the internet anywhere, even without mains electricity. The device intelligently hops between Ethernet, WiFi and available 3G/4G networks to maintain connectivity. The team describes it as a backup generator for the internet and positions it as the easiest, most reliable way to connect in low‑infrastructure environments. The project was prototyped and built in Nairobi, Kenya, and the effort has required developing local hardware expertise and tools. Financially, BRCK ran a Kickstarter campaign that surpassed its US$125,000 goal and has rewarded hundreds of backers; the campaign reported more than US$127,000 raised with around 834 backers and over 430 BRCKs already promised.