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Indian Express
09-08-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
India's food supply chain is complex; agritech startups are trying to solve it: Hemendra Mathur, startup mentor
Hemendra Mathur is a partner at Bharat Innovation Fund, a venture capital fund focused on deep-tech investments in emerging sectors, including agriculture, clean technology, healthcare, and digital tech. He is also the co-founder of ThinkAg, a not-for-profit platform for accelerating the adoption of innovation in agriculture, and the chairman of FICCI's task force on agritech startups. Hemendra is an engineering graduate from the College of Technology and Engineering, Udaipur. Hemendra spoke to on his journey in the agritech sector, challenges faced by agritech startups in India, and on themes that have not worked for the agritech sector. Edited excerpts: Venkatesh Kannaiah: Tell us about your journey in India's agritech sector. Hemendra Mathur: It happened by chance. During 2008, I was working with a private equity fund investing in late-stage companies across the food value chain. Around 2010, I noticed young tech entrepreneurs entering the agriculture sector, which was a pleasant surprise because agriculture had conventionally been a talent-starved sector. I saw people quitting companies like Honeywell, Bain, or tech founders returning from the US. These were early-stage entrepreneurs who were reaching out for guidance, ecosystem connections, and fundraising support. It intrigued me because this sector is not for the faint-hearted. I started mentoring them, and since we were not doing startup investments at the fund, I helped them with whatever support I could provide. In 2016, I left the private equity fund. I had the option to start or join a new fund, but I decided the best use of my time was to be an ecosystem enabler. My prior experience with Rabobank gave me banking and consulting exposure. The last nine years have been the best part of my career, working with investors, startups, and senior government officials. The goal was to drive innovation at scale in a complex sector. I am on the Union Government's expert committee for Agri Stack. As part of an IFC project, I am working with the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh to develop Agri Stack use cases, like digitizing Kisan Credit Card crop loans, which are typically manual and time-consuming. We are also building the first open network for agriculture — Open Agri Net — where farmers are not tied to a single app but can access services like soil testing, financing, insurance, or equipment rental via a user-friendly bot. We have identified about 40 agritech network partners to connect farmers with relevant services, like weather forecasts, market prices, or buyers for their produce. This reduces the high cost of reaching and servicing farmers. I also mentor startups, and have mentored around 500 of them in the last eight or nine years. Venkatesh Kannaiah: Tell us about some highlights of India's agritech journey. Hemendra Mathur: The Indian food supply chain is the most complicated on earth; 150 million farmers on one end, 1.4 billion consumers on the other, and a narrow middle layer of 5-10 million traders, wholesalers, retailers, and 40 million kirana stores. From 2010 to 2017, agritech was in an experimental mode. The question was: would farmers adopt it? Would someone pay for these solutions? Would large corporations buy them? The investment in agritech during those first six or seven years was impact-led, with small cheques from impact investors. Then, in 2017, a new wave of entrepreneurs entered agriculture with much more enthusiasm. During the pandemic, the food supply chain was very active, retailers kept selling, and agritech and food tech startups worked 24/7 to keep it running. Digital adoption by farmers and consumers grew significantly. Farmers became more digitally literate, which changed agritech between 2019 and 2021. That was an inflection point. Investors woke up during this period as agriculture was growing — food production and consumption increased, and people were willing to pay a premium for quality food. Who would have thought that someone would pay a hundred rupees for one piece of cake? Consumer awareness about food traceability, safety, and nutrition picked up. Investors saw agritech as a growth sector and a defensible one — food is the last thing consumers compromise on. In 2020 and 2021, investments increased dramatically, and large investors started taking interest, supporting startups through multiple rounds. This brought agritech into the mainstream. Post-2022, we entered a different phase, where agritech demonstrated it could scale. Some startups achieved turnovers of $50 million to $100 million. However, a lot of money was sunk; stuck in debt, inventory, or overbuilding solutions. When the funding winter hit post-pandemic, agritech investors started asking tough questions: Will you ever make money? Scale is fine, but where's the bottom line? This was true for other sectors too, but agritech suffered more because profitability and farmers' ability to pay became question marks. It is also seen as riskier from a regulatory and policy perspective. In 2023, funding dropped, and the focus shifted from driving top-line growth (GMV) to bottom-line profitability. An investment lens alone does not work; policy is critical. In 2017, inspired by the success of UPI, I wrote about Agri Stack for a government-led data repository for agriculture that could later be opened to the private sector for building use cases. In 2021, the government adopted it, and now 60-70 million farmers are enrolled, with hopes to include 100-150 million, covering landowners and landless farmers. Agri Stack integrates farmer, crop, and farm registries, providing powerful data on farmer identity, farm location, size, and crops grown. This is invaluable for banks like the State Bank of India to offer loans or for buyers sourcing from farmers. We are digitising 160 million hectares of agricultural land, using satellite imagery to track crops. Venkatesh Kannaiah: What are the challenges faced by agritech startups in India? Hemendra Mathur: The biggest challenge in agritech is not funding, it is talent. Agriculture is not a career of choice for young professionals or students. I became an agricultural engineer because I had no other option. Agriculture is not taught at school or college level, while we need agronomists, plant scientists, veterinarians, behavioural scientists, meteorologists, hydrologists, and data scientists for AI/ML applications. As agriculture is a state subject, it is tough for startups to move between states due to differing regulations. Standardising policies and opening public datasets (70% of startup time is spent on data collection) and physical infrastructure, like warehousing, would help. Margins are low in commodity trading, so value addition requires accessible processing and storage facilities. Trends show that 80% of the investments have gone into farm-to-table models connecting farmers to customers (e.g., BigHaat, AgroStar), with a focus on demand aggregation, inventory management, quality control, and logistics. The remaining 20% investment has moved into areas like input quality, mechanisation, and farmer advisory solutions for pest detection, soil testing, or irrigation scheduling, using data from IoT, mobile phones, or satellite imagery. Less investment has gone into agri-biotech, deep tech (robotics, computer vision, AI), or fintech for farmer financing. Supply chain financing, warehousing, and cattle financing are untapped opportunities. Venkatesh Kannaiah: How do agritech themes and trends abroad differ from those in India? Hemendra Mathur: Globally, agritech in the US, Israel, or Europe focuses on farm-level interventions, like productivity, soil health, alternative proteins, and controlled environment agriculture (greenhouses, vertical farms) because farms are larger and supply chains are more streamlined. In India, complex supply chains make farm-to-table models dominant, but Indian solutions are portable to other smallholder-dominated regions. Farmer dashboards, common abroad, are less relevant for India's small 2-4 acre farms. Venkatesh Kannaiah: How does ThinkAg initiative work and what has it achieved? Hemendra Mathur: The ThinkAg initiative, started in 2018 as a not-for-profit, aims to help startups scale by testing business models early through partnerships with over 40 agri-corporates, research institutions, universities, accelerators, investors, and policymakers. We organise thematic events and publish an annual agritech investment report, a benchmark for investors tracking trends. It is an open-source ecosystem platform, collaborating with incubators like Social Alpha and AgHub to validate innovations and build partnerships. Venkatesh Kannaiah: Tell us about agritech themes that have not worked in an Indian context? Hemendra Mathur: There are pure trading models, where there is buying and selling without any value addition. Such models had scaled up but could not sustain due to low margins and were vulnerable to pricing shocks. Second were in the category of controlled environment agriculture, like hydroponics and greenhouses. These had high upfront costs and limited market linkage for premium products, making scaling slow. Such technologies are perhaps relevant in land-scarce regions like Singapore, but not in India. The third is one of alternative proteins, like meat or milk substitutes. India has a low per-capita meat consumption, and with traditional alternatives like plant-based protein diets (pulses) being popular, the alternative protein industry finds it tough to take off. As for the usage of drones in agriculture, they are in their early stages and promising. However, scaling it requires training rural youth in drone operations, as it is a skilled job varying by crop. Venkatesh Kannaiah: What are your three asks from the government? Hemendra Mathur: Firstly, we require dedicated agritech innovation cells at the central and state levels to streamline compliance, certification, and engagement with startups. Secondly, we need more catalytic capital for incubators, including grants, blended finance, or low-cost debt to support early-stage startups. Thirdly, we need open digital data stacks (like Agri Stack) for startups to build applications, with privacy protocols to enable farmer financing and market linkages.
Entrepreneur
19-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
India's Cloud Boom Hides a Growing Security Crisis
"If you want to beat the Hacker who is looking at all of your assets all the time, you got to do your testing much more frequently and that too covering all your digital footprint including the cloud," says Somshubhro Pal Choudhury, Co-Founder and Partner at Bharat Innovation Fund Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. India's cloud computing market is booming. It has generated USD 17.88 billion in 2024 alone and is projected to grow to USD 76.38 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 26.5 per cent from 2025 to 2030. But, what is cloud computing? This technology enables the on-demand use of data storage, servers, networking, and software over the internet, and is important for businesses due to its cost-efficiency and flexibility. By using cloud services, companies can reduce upfront investment in hardware and software. However, a recent report from Tenable, '2025 Cloud Security Risk Report', reveals that Indian organisations are facing serious hidden risks in their cloud setups. A hidden crisis The report uncovers major security gaps in cloud environments from misconfigured storage that exposes sensitive data to embedded secrets in workloads. These vulnerabilities can lead to data breaches, financial losses, and regulatory penalties. "Cloud misconfigurations remain common in Indian companies as digital adoption often outpaces security readiness. Under tight deadlines, teams may unintentionally skip vital security steps, leading to exposed systems. The issue isn't a lack of tools but a lack of standardisation, awareness, and accountability," said Aditya Joshi, COO, SA Technologies. Somshubhro Pal Choudhury, Co-Founder and Partner at Bharat Innovation Fund, added that hackers now use AI and automation at scale, cutting down the time needed to exploit a vulnerability from months to hours. They constantly scan digital assets, whereas companies often test their systems only once or twice a year. "This creates a dangerous security gap. The problem is compounded by rampant use of third-party and fourth-party vendors, contractors, and partners, whose security postures vary widely and are often poorly monitored. Limited security awareness among employees, contractors, and partners further contributes to misconfigurations and risky practices like Shadow IT and unvetted open-source usage…" "…You swipe your credit card and open up a cloud bucket," said Choudhury. For startups especially, the pressure to move fast often pushes security to the background — leaving systems wide open. This becomes even more concerning given that India is now the world's second most hacked nation. Sensitive data at risk The report found that nine per cent of all analysed cloud storage resources contain restricted or confidential data. Even though this percentage seems small, it means millions of sensitive records are exposed in high-volume environments. Worse, nearly one in ten publicly accessible storage locations store sensitive data, often due to basic misconfigurations, weak access controls, and lack of visibility. This leaves organisations open to serious security and compliance risks. The report also reveals that 54 per cent of organisations using AWS ECS task definitions have secrets embedded in them, which can lead to full cloud takeovers or misuse like crypto mining. Furthermore, 3.5 per cent of AWS EC2 instances have credentials exposed in user data, giving hackers a clear way to access and escalate attacks. "Secrets are the keys to the kingdom, yet many organisations are unknowingly leaving them unguarded across their cloud infrastructures," explained Ari Eitan, Director of Cloud Security Research, Tenable. "In today's threat landscape, complacency is costly. Organisations must treat secrets with the highest level of security hygiene to prevent attackers from gaining footholds that can spiral into full-blown breaches." Call for a proactive security approach With Indian businesses and government agencies accelerating cloud adoption, the report stresses the urgent need for a risk-based, proactive approach to cloud security. "Most organisations rely on traditional, periodic penetration testing or audits that occur infrequently and cover only some assets. While these tests uncover many vulnerabilities and overwhelm the Cybersecurity teams and create "Alert Fatigue", not all vulnerabilities are exploitable by attackers. The key challenge is identifying which vulnerabilities form actual attack paths that hackers can leverage," explained Pal Choudhury. Still, there is some progress. Joshi shared that companies are increasingly adopting protective measures like multi-factor authentication, access controls, regular audits, and backups. But human error and misconfigurations still cause accidental data exposure. He added that the way forward is to strengthen both technical controls and user awareness. Regulators like the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have already laid down cloud risk management frameworks. However, readiness varies. Joshi noted, "Readiness for SEBI and RBI's cloud risk regulations varies widely. While larger enterprises are better equipped to comply, smaller firms often struggle with interpreting and implementing the guidelines. To bridge this gap, regulatory frameworks must be translated into practical, manageable security actions focused on long-term resilience not just compliance." Eitan warned that the agility of the cloud also comes with risk. "The cloud offers incredible agility, but without strong controls and continuous monitoring, it also opens the door to significant exposures," Eitan added. "Understanding where your sensitive data and credentials are and who can access them must now be a board-level priority." Choudhury concluded, "If you want to beat the Hacker who is looking at All of your Assets all the time, you got to do your testing much more frequently and that too covering all your Digital Footprint including the cloud."
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Why Megabucks AI pilots may not guarantee scalable businesses for technology companies
Technology companies are investing megabucks on generating AI pilots to build competitive moats and futureproof revenue streams, but all of these capital outlays may not necessarily translate into scalable businesses , multiple industry experts and founders told ET. #Operation Sindoor Live Updates| From Sindoor to showdown? Track Indo-Pak conflict as it unfolds India hits Lahore's Air Defence Radars in proportionate response Pakistan tried to hit military targets in these 15 Indian cities, New Delhi thwarts strikes Globally, a large number of organisations are pursuing 20 or fewer GenAI experiments , and of this 10-30% are expected to scale into production, Deloitte said in a recent report. The pace of transformation at most companies is in line with the pace of organizational change, but it often trails the rate at which technology is changing, said the report. Somshubhro Pal Choudhury, partner, Bharat Innovation Fund, told ET that while GenAI startups are seeing successful pilots, transition to full deployment is a much slower process. Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The World's Most Stunning Blue Flag Beaches Ranked: Top 25 List! Click Here Undo 'Enterprises adopt new technologies cautiously as they prioritise solutions that have clear and predictable outcomes,' Pal Choudhry said. Customer caution about potential pitfalls of GenAI in the industry wide ecosystem and lack of clarity around where they need to be deployed are reasons for the circumspect adoption. With the macroeconomic uncertainty, companies are also evaluating their discretionary spends, which includes AI pilots. Live Events 'Not material' Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories Shobhit Jain, managing director and head, enterprise technology and services, Avendus Capital, said that for large cap companies, the work on GenAI does not go beyond 3-4%. 'What we are hearing from our clients is that while there is work happening, materially they are not even crossing 5-10% of the revenue,' Jain said. Companies are spending in areas such as GenAI-powered data and analytics, cloud and testing and quality assurance, Jain said. However, while there is a lot of experimentation going on, a fraction of these pilots would get into production. Venk Krishnan, founder, NuWare, an enterprise software company, said that as of now, there is more experimentation than actual value generation. 'We are doing a lot of PoCs with the clients across retail, BFSI and healthcare space. What we are seeing from our portfolio companies is that hardly 5-10% of the PoCs are translating into actual business,' Krishnan said. 'The biggest problem is that there is not much clarity on where to use AI in the enterprise pipeline.' Priority is another hurdle for AI adoption. For large enterprises, their existing business remains key and more often than not, they are not willing to pull out key resources to focus on the GenAI use cases, particularly when the return on investment is unclear. Avendus Capital's Jain said that while many are talking about GenAI projects, these are also coming as commentary to queries by research analysts. 'But none of the IT companies are correlating their demand and growth narratives to GenAI work,' he pointed out. 'Because of recession and other external factors, there is fear that PoCs and investments (in GenAI) may not happen,' Jain said. However, he added that so far, they have not seen their large or mid-cap companies highlight any change and continue to invest in merger and acquisitions. 'We have yet to hear anything different,' he said.
