Agri-commerce platform Arya.ag aims to boost its net revenue by nearly 40%, targeting ₹500 crore in the current fiscal year, up from ₹360 crore in FY24. This growth is expected through the expansion of warehouse management, collateral financing, and trading facilities across various states, as well as by deepening its outreach to farmer producer organisations (FPOs) through pre-harvest services like satellite imaging of crop conditions.
“The value of grain stored in our warehouses is likely to increase by more than 30% this fiscal, along with a significant rise in loans disbursed under collateral financing and the value of commodities traded on our platform,” Prasanna Rao, CEO and co-founder of Arya.ag, told FE.
Rao said that Arya.ag provides storage as a service, along with finance and commerce, to farmers, collectives, and traders. The company is also considering adding logistics and transport services for farmers and buyers.
In FY24, ₹4,700 crore worth of agri-commodities was traded on Arya’s platform. This figure is expected to rise to ₹6,500 crore in the current year. “We are aiming for a net profit of ₹40-45 crore this fiscal, compared to a profit of ₹17 crore in FY24,” Rao stated.
Currently, around 1,200 farmer producer organisations (FPOs), representing 0.8 million farmers, 500 small aggregators and commission agents, more than 2,000 pulses and flour millers, and approximately 100 corporates—including ITC, Adani, Britannia, and Olam—store and sell their commodities in warehouses listed on the Arya platform.
The company has listed close to 12,000 warehouses across 21 states, managing 3,500 of them directly. The remaining warehouses are listed on the platform for discovery by stakeholders.
“Our business model is unique in that we are not traders; we do not buy or sell commodities. Instead, we facilitate the sale of commodities on our platform. Farmers gain insight into the prices at which their commodities are sold, while buyers receive all necessary information about the commodities,” Rao said. He added that the company charges a fee for these transactions, unlike the margin-based approach in trading.
In June 2022, Arya.ag, one of the largest integrated grain commerce platforms, acquired satellite imaging and remote sensing company Prakshep to provide pre-harvest information on crop conditions.
“We have digitised 200,000 farms, and an additional 3.4 million farms will be digitised this fiscal. This will allow us to provide accurate information about crop conditions to buyers in advance,” Rao said.
The platform provides information, storage and trading facilities for about 48 commodities including paddy, wheat, maize, oilseeds and cotton with a footprint across 400 districts in 21 states.
The company has a significant presence in Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat while it holds mandi license in several states including Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Set up in 2013, integrated agri-commerce platform Arya.ag is making an attempt to connect farmers with large buyers of agricultural commodities by providing a host of services such as integration of commodities at the farmers’ level, ensuring warehousing financing, providing loans to farmers against crops deposited in warehouses, information on mandi prices and ensuring market linkages under one single digital platform.
From: financialexpress
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