Protocol (1), the Gurugram-based startup has raised approximately 4.8 Million USD in funding from several investors. It includes Sequoia Surge, Blume Ventures, Beenex, and Rainmatter Capital.
The Agri commodities procurement startup has around 1500 customers on its platforms. Its customers include Haldiram’s, Future Group, Big Basket, and many others. It has attained over 100 crore INR GMV (gross margin value) and 50% NPS (net promoter score).
The landscape of Agri commodity has many inefficiencies and uncertainties. However, there are many ways to fix the hurdles via tech-enabled groundbreaking innovations to this sizeable unorganized market valued at 400 Billion USD.
The farm sector community has managed to overcome many more immense challenges with supply chain startups. It includes Crofarm, Ninjacart, Udaan, Procol, AgriBazaar, StartAgi, and many others.
Protocol Focuses on Challenges of the Agri Sector
The Agri value chain includes farmers, at the bottom but a most crucial component, followed by processors, marketers, retailers, wholesalers, and consumers. Many challenges, including fair pricing, transparency, trust, and quality, have existed for many years. However, they have now come to a head during the COVID-19.
Gaurav Baheti and Sumit Mendiratta founded the Protocol in 2018. The startup claims that it has digitized the manufacturers’ procurement procedures. The company has not removed the middleman but makes the process more efficient.
Baheti stated that the company was started to address the challenges in the agriculture sector. However, they soon realized that the problems cover the entire industry. The billion-dollar companies still use phone calls and emails to communicate for quotes, negotiation, and product procurement. It leads to a lot of data loss, lack of transparency, and trust. And it causes a lot of leakages in the procurement margins.
He added that this how the Protocol or procurement protocol was started. It provides access to food retailers and FMCG institutes to manage their vendors, real-time cash monitoring, and a quick inventory turnaround time.
The startup had secured 3.8 million by Sequoia Surge and Beenext in July. Last year, the startup also bagged 1 million USD from Rainmatter Capital and Blume Ventures. Baheti stated that the firm is focusing on enhancing its customer experience with the recent fundraise.
