Dairy-tech startup Stellapps has completed the first close towards its pre-series C round from various investors. The total size of the round will be USD 18 Mn. Led by global animal nutrition and aquaculture company, Nutreco, the fundraising round saw participation from existing investors including Qualcomm Ventures, Celesta Capital, and ABB Technology Ventures.
Stellapps is an internationally acclaimed farm to consumer dairy digitization service provider, improving productivity and quality, while ensuring end-to-end traceability across the dairy supply chain. The company plans to employ the funds to rapidly scale its traceability network and extend its digital footprint across India.
The Indian market for dairy sector accounts for about 6.5% of India GDP, a market worth about US$225 billion. India is the largest milk producer in the world and contributes to 22% of global milk production. Stellapps’ technology will ensure that farmers gain access to its services like farm improvement, cattle nutrition, credit, and insurance, to deliver assured quality across the dairy supply chain.
“Our vision is to unlock unprecedented value across the dairy supply chain for all stakeholders, especially smallholder farmers,” said Ranjith Mukundan, CEO of Stellapps. “We are on a mission to shift the Indian smallholder farmers into the agripreneur orbit by enhancing productivity, improving quality, and enabling traceability through our smartMoo solutions. The support and confidence of our investors allows us to actualize our vision to enhance farmer income and profitability through a combination of our technology solutions, farm inputs, and market linkages.”
Stellapps was founded in 2011 by five technology industry veterans who believed that IoT could transform rural India. Its award-winning smartMoo technology solutions enhance productivity, milk quality, and enable traceability. By enabling ecosystem partnerships through its online platform, Stellapps empowers farmers by providing access to financial services, quality nutrition, and timely veterinary care. Stellapps’ mooPay FinTech arm facilitates the financial inclusion of smallholder farmers by providing access to digital payments, banking, savings, cash withdrawal, credit, and insurance.
“I am thrilled that Nutreco is investing in Stellapps, a game changing technology for sustainable growth in the Indian dairy market,” Fulco van Lede, CEO of Nutreco said. “Our purpose, Feeding the Future, drives us to invest in innovative technologies that improve the sustainability of our food supply chain. The investment in Stellapps not only supports the farming industry to feed a growing global population in a more sustainable way, but also provides better prospects for smaller farmers.”
Last year, Stellapps was one of two Indian companies featured in the list of Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum. The organized milk market is growing at 20% CAGR in India while value-added products are growing at 25% CAGR. Stellapps is scaling rapidly to address the present gaps in the dairy value chain and support farmers with its solutions.
“Stellapps, with its full stack IoT platform for end-to-end dairy supply chain management, is speeding up India’s digital transformation in farming and is also making a significant contribution to sustainability,” said Franziska Bossart, Global Vice President, ABB Technology Ventures. “This aligns fully with ABB’s commitment to sustainable value creation.”
“Stellapps’ full-stack IoT platform, which utilizes Qualcomm® technology, is enabling the digitization of the dairy supply chain, helping improve product quality, production and financing of milk in India”, said Varsha Tagare, Sr. Director, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Managing Director at Qualcomm Ventures. “We’re thrilled to support their journey towards innovating the dairy industry, including their participation in the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge.”
“The dairy industry needs to provide customers visibility on the various ingredient quality parameters in a traceable way,” said Sudhir Rao, Managing Partner of Celesta Capital. “Technology interventions across the supply chain from ‘Farm to Fridge’ are an imperative, and Stellapps has invested in the end-to-end stack to be able to deliver quality certified milk under their mooMark initiative to discerning buyers across India.”
