This Agritech Startup Gets Initial Round Funding Of IDR 35.7 Billion

JAKARTA - Agritech startup focused on agriculture, DayaTani announced the successful funding of US$2.3 million or equivalent to Rp. 35.7 billion in the initial round (seed round financing).

This round involved participation from leading venture capitalists, namely KBI Investment and MDI Ventures supported by Ascent Venture Group who led this round, along with Northstar Ventures, BRI Ventures, and Gentree Fund.

This initial round or whole seed round is a signal of the return of optimism for the agritech industry in Indonesia and strengthens investor confidence in DayaTani's ability to change Indonesian agriculture with technology while creating significant social impacts.

"DayaTani was founded with a vision to increase the yield of Indonesian farmers through technology and create significant social impacts," said Deryl Lu, Co-founder of DayaTani.

"This investment shows confidence in our business and technology models. We are committed to improving Indonesian farmers through innovative technology and partnerships."

The Indonesian agricultural sector, which contributes about 13% to GDP and absorbs nearly 29 percent of the workforce, faces significant changes1, especially with the introduction of digital technology.

Food safety remains an important goal for Indonesia, and even though there has been progress in basic food production since the 2012 Food Law, challenges still exist, especially in terms of affordability and quality of food nutrition.

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed vulnerabilities in the agri-food system, but it also presents opportunities for transformation.

Indonesia's agricultural sector is generally marked by traditional practices, but now the transformation is happening by digital technology.

Currently, DayaTani operates several agricultural research and development sites on the island of Java for several horticultural plants as well as food crops such as rice, corn, chilies, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, and shallots to understand the factors that affect the yields in an area.

Agriculture research and development helps in building the best practice SOPs that function for the region, which they then share with farmers in a profit-sharing business model supported by intensive agnomy support, high-quality input financing, and digital tools to measure and control actions in the fields.

In terms of digital transformation, agriculture in Indonesia is still one of the least digitalized sectors, leaving a lot of room for increased productivity and development opportunities.

Ankit Gupta, the Co-founder of DayaTani, explained that DayaTani is building a semi-bionic agronous agent who has access to all relevant tools and technologies to solve the agricultural problems of a farmer.

He explained that the first version of their agri LLM chatbot was active in the field agent application and WhatsApp for farmers.

"Now, agronoms and farmers can ask bots specific questions in their regional languages via text or speech. It also supports multimodal capabilities such as image uploading to diagnose plant problems with high precision and generate custom recommendations," he added.

DayaTani plans to install more than 100 IoT (Internet of Things) devices throughout Java within one year, creating a weather station network.

This network will provide precise and specific weather information on locations and weather warnings that are more relevant to farmers.

Companies are working to build the hardware and software needed for this network, including developing their Agronomi application.

They also focus on creating data science models that can provide practical recommendations for farmers, such as more accurate fertilizer suggestions based on real-world conditions than basic rules.

This approach uses real-world data, aims to continue to improve this technology and ultimately increase the productivity of small farmers in Southeast Asia.

DayaTani has formed partnerships with major industry players to support Indonesian farmers.

With the help of Microsoft Singapore, they developed an NGO chatbot adapted for agricultural needs.

The company is also working with leading agritech companies in input sales, offering high-quality resources at competitive prices to DayaTani farmers.

In addition, companies that are surfaced in output trading are involved in purchasing horticultural products from the DayaTani farmer network, ensuring reliable markets for their products.

"Overall, DayaTani's initiative is in line with the greater goal of modernizing Indonesian agriculture, making it more efficient, sustainable, and resilient. By utilizing technology, DayaTani not only increases productivity but also contributes to the digital ecosystem that is increasingly important in the Indonesian agricultural sector," concluded Deryl.