Rajasthan-based organic foods producer and supplier Natureland Organic Foods Pvt Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount from SIDBI Venture Capital’s Samridhi Fund, the company said on Thursday.
It will use the money to ramp-up its operations and to expand its market presence nationally.
Natureland Organics works with a network of certified organic farmers and farms. It has tied up with over 3,200 farmers in different states of the country. Besides Rajasthan, it has a reach in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Its products include beans & pulses, grains & flour, spices, oil & oilseeds and other products.
Samridhi Fund focuses on social enterprises in eight states—Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
The fund aims to invest in the MSME sector and provide financial assistance to companies that have projects with a developmental impact.
Last year, SIDBI invested in Nagpur-headquartered Rite Water Solutions (India) Pvt Ltd and Bhubaneswar-based Kanungo Institute of Diabetes Specialties through Samridhi Fund.
Earlier it invested in Shikhar Dairy Pvt Ltd, Glocal Healthcare Systems Pvt Ltd and Gramco Infratech Pvt Ltd.
Think Capital acted as an exclusive financial advisor to Natureland Organics on this deal.
In the past there have been a few other small deals in the organic food space with Ahmedabad-based Last Mile Accelerator investing $50,000 (about Rs 30 lakh) in Parvata Foods and Bangalore-based Safe Harvest Pvt Ltd, which procures organic produce from farmers and sells it directly to retail customers, securing Rs 1.74 crore (over $250,000) from Delhi-based early-stage investor Palaash Ventures and a few other investors, including Ford Foundation’s South Asia representative Ganesan Balachander, apart from six farmer producers’ organisations.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
