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Agri-tech has benefitted from the smartphone boom as well as asset-light technology companies addressing challenges in the space. The sector is likely to see startups from the early crop go IPO as public market investors understand the business well, Prashanth Prakash, partner at venture capital firm Accel told TechCircle.

Prakash is also chairman of Karnataka Vision Group on startups.  “We are seeing entrepreneurs (entering agri-tech) who are good at execution coming into the space and investments will follow,” he added.

Speaking to TechCircle during the recently concluded Bengaluru Tech Summit, he added that agri-focused financial services is a category from which startups are likely to go to the public markets.

Accel, which was an early backer in consumer-tech companies such as Flipkart and SaaS unicorn Freshworks, is also an investor in Chennai-based NBFC Samunnati, agri-inputs provider AgroStarn and agri-marketing platform Ninjacart.

With its $550 million India fund, which was raised in December 2019, Accel says it will continue to back companies in the sectors of business-to-business ecommerce and supply chain for enterprises. Its SaaS bets from the fund include virtual events platform Airmeet and other startups in the sector of future-of-work.