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With the new acquisition, the Chennai-based Samunnati is expected to increase its outreach to new farmer producer organisations (FPOs), small traders, farmer aggregators, and agri SMEs across the country

Agriculture finance and value chain startup Samunnati on Monday announced that it has completed a 100% acquisition of agri logistics firm Kamatan in a share swap deal.

With the new acquisition, the Chennai-based Samunnati is expected to increase its outreach to new farmer producer organisations (FPOs), small traders, farmer aggregators, and agri SMEs across the country, Anilkumar SG, the chief executive and founder of Samunnati, said.

“They have built efficient supply chains for all farm produce, leveraging technology to reduce wastage and inefficiencies, while linking producers and bulk buyers in a seamless, transparent, and value-driven relationship,” he said. “This has a strong correlation with Samunnati’s work with FPOs on the supply side and agri enterprises on the demand side across 20 states in India. We look forward to bringing the benefits of our joint synergies to FPOs and agri enterprises across the nation.”

According to Pravesh Sharma, the co-founder and CEO of Kamatan Farms, the combined forces of the two companies can improve geographical and operational synergies.

“The agri sector in India is poised at an inflection point with enormous potential for the emergence and growth of inclusive value chains, owing to the push for self-sufficiency,” Sharma said. “We are confident that our combined efforts will result in a bigger bouquet of services reaching a larger number of FPOs and agri enterprises and together we will create new milestones of growth in serving the needs of the agri community.”

Samunnati is a non-banking financial company focused on agriculture financing, collectively serving over 4 million small farmers in partnership with community associations and agriculture enterprises. It also specialises in market linkages through its agri chain platform, while also focussing on upskilling small farmers and traders in the end to end supply chain it serves.

The startup, founded in 2014, counts Elevar, Accel, ResponsAbility and Nuveen among its investors. The firm raised equity capital of $55 million (about Rs 390 crore) in May 2019 in a Series D funding round, from US-based Nuveen, which is the investment arm of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA).

Meanwhile, Kamatan is a logistics and supply chain company that focuses on building agri chain solutions for small farmers across the country. The company works with 70 FPOs and has supported over 30,000 farmers across 20 cities in procuring, sourcing, storing, quality control and logistics solutions