Digivriddhi Technologies Private Limited (DGV), a Neo-Banking startup focusing on the dairy industry, said that it has raised $3.1 million in a pre-Series-A investment led by Info Edge Ventures and Omnivore. DGV has opted to focus on India's 75 million dairy farmers through its aided digital platform, providing them with access to formal banking and world-class financial services.
Through its partnership with Federal Bank, DGV is presently working with some of India's major co-operative dairy unions, as well as their respective milk co-operative societies and farmers, to provide them with access to payments, liabilities, and asset products. The Indian dairy industry, worth $145 billion, is one of the world's largest, contributing over 4% of GDP, 25% of Agri GDP, and employing over 100 million people.
DGV was formed in 2019 by Ragavan Venkatesan. He was previously a member of the founding teams at IDFC Bank and NPCI, where he was instrumental in the development and implementation of Aadhaar Payment Services. He also played a key role in the development of the Indian government's Direct Benefit Transfer Platform. Mukesh Ranjan, a founding member of the RuPay Card Scheme and Jio Payments, former NPCI HR Lead Ravi Singh, and Sorabh Mehta, a former Business Lead at VISA Processing Services, are among DGV's senior management team.
Regarding the investment, "We are happy to welcome Info Edge Ventures and Omnivore to lead our first institutional round," Ragavan Venkatesan, DGV's Founder and CEO, said. With Info Edge Ventures' experience expanding digital markets and Omnivore's extensive expertise in Agtech, we will be able to build an unrivalled full-service platform for dairy producers."
“With a market value of $145 billion, India's dairy industry employs more than 75 million dairy farmers. Despite the industry's enormous size and importance to our livelihoods, dairy farmers have limited access to fundamental financial goods and services, and often find it difficult to obtain cash. DGV is creating a Neo-banking platform for these dairy farmers by digitising the whole payment stack utilising Aadhaar, the National Payment Switch, and Micro ATM technologies, with ambitions to develop a variety of financial products tailored to these farmers' credit, insurance, and other needs. We're thrilled to be working with Ragavan, who is enthusiastic about improving the lives of dairy farmers and providing them with much-needed financial inclusion”, commented Kitty Agarwal, Partner, Info Edge Ventures.
"We would be hard pressed to find an entrepreneur better fit, or able, than Ragavan to take on a problem of this scope and complexity," stated Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner, Omnivore. We're thrilled to join Ragavan in his aim to bring world-class financial services to India's dairy industry's 100 million stakeholders.
"Federal Bank's relationship with DGV is another step toward extending financial inclusion in the country," stated Ms. Shalini Warrier, Executive Director & Business Head- Retail, Federal Bank. We are providing API Banking services to Dairy Farmers in Gujarat in the areas of payments, liabilities, and associated asset products under this agreement. DGV's execution strategy is one-of-a-kind, and it helps to reimagine finance access for farmers. We plan to replicate this approach in other parts of the country, and we're certain that our partnership with DGV will transform the Dairy Neo Banking space."
