State of Agritech - 21st July 2023

This audiovisual meme is better enjoyed here along with commentary.

In Today’s Edition:

1/Making Sense of Jai Kisan’s B4R (Build for Rural) Labs

Jai Kisan’s newly incubated ‘Build 4 Rural Labs’ is a ‘multi-disciplinary studio and lab’ that aims to solve problems for rural users ‘including farmers, small business owners, and rural women’. Will B4R build rural financial products in line with their strategic pivot post their $50 Mn Series-B round in July’22?

2/Emerging Patterns of Agrifintech

Indian fintech startups are queuing to apply for licenses to operate as non-banking finance companies in light of the recent RBI regulations on digital lending. Besides horizontal and vertical agrifintech models, what are the emerging patterns of agri-fintech in smallholding contexts?

3/Will Growpital move past its regulatory arbitrage model?

In light of the recent Livemint spotlight on Growpital’s agri-investment model, will Growpital move past its regulatory arbitrage model? Or would the regulatory climate eventually evolve to regulate the emerging agri-investment tech players?