Growth spurt: Agritech WayCool plans to restructure with spinoffs

For six years, agri-commerce startup WayCool quietly went about embedding itself in the complex supply chains of India’s farm sector. So, when it notched $117 million this January in one of the largest fundraises Indian agritech has seen, there was an obvious stir among analysts who perhaps missed spotting its rise.

The round, from World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, Dutch development bank FMO, Lightbox and others, confirmed a vital shift. The relatively low funding baseline for agritechs is inching up, helping the broader segment come of age.

For Chennai-based WayCool, this was just the boost it needed to finalise its biggest scale-up and structural overhaul (read spinoffs) since being incorporated in 2015.

The company has built four main lines of operations, and unlike its peers such as DeHaat that nurse pan-India ambitions, it focuses primarily on the home turf of southern states. It buys fresh produce, including dairy, from about 2 lakh farmers and sells it to retailers and restaurants. Separately, it runs five private-label food brands, handles distribution for FMCG makers and recently began exporting goods to the Middle East.