"Farmers' produce are fetching much better prices with numerous platforms providing market linkages"
Nikhil Tripathi, Co-founder, Bijak
Bijak is a leading B2B trading agritech startup with logistics services for their 25,000 traders and suppliers. Bijak aims to curb food wastage, build consistent supply and movement of 110 commodities. From a gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 50 lakh in October 2019, the platform has hit an annualised GMV of Rs 1,200 crore. Bijak has shown exceptional growth during the pandemic, with presence in 27 states/union territories (UT). For traders and suppliers, Bijak aims to bring flexibility, convenience, cost-effectiveness and build market linkages in the agri supply chain. Aligning to the company’s vision, the company has taken a step forward to facilitate transparent trading and offer services such as credit, payments/ escrow, and logistics. Nikhil Tripathi, Co-founder, Bijak, shares his views with Agrospectrum on the contribution of agritech startups in the agri-supply chain. Edited excerpts;
What has been Bijak's role in creating barrier-free agricultural market linkage for agri-commodity traders?
Bijak is a B2B marketplace for agricultural commodities that enables traders, wholesalers and food processors to discover counterparties, get better pricing, and access working capital. We have created an online marketplace of verified agri-traders through our proprietary rating tool that addresses the trust aspect, by bringing in a platform for transparency in supply chain processes. Through the platform, Bijak is bringing accountability to all stakeholders in the agri value chain. It also acts as an e-ledger for suppliers and buyers, maintaining the transaction history for both making Bijak a trusted partner in the agriculture commerce community.
Indian agri traders traditionally dealt with only a limited number of trusted counterparties. With Bijak, they can now connect with thousands of agri traders from across India based on ratings alone. This opens up suppliers to new business opportunities that didn’t exist earlier. Similarly, buyers can now trade with verified suppliers from different regions. Bijak is used by agri traders in more than 1200 locations across 28 Indian states and union territories. More than 25,000 buyers and suppliers have used our platform to date. This includes farmers, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOS) and other institutional players. The app sees daily trade in over 100 perishable commodities and hits half a billion dollars in annualised GMV in 2021.
How will Bijak's recent launch of logistics services in Maharashtra and UP boost the agri-value chain?
The agri-tech market in India is a highly
fragmented sector. The agri supply chain constantly faces various challenges like matching the rising demand or procurement of produce to maintain the consistent supply of agri commodities across India. To overcome these challenges, we have introduced logistic services for traders and suppliers for the smooth flow of commodities across states. We are boosting the agri-value chain by curbing food wastage, building consistent supply and movement of commodities. As a company, we are ensuring flexibility, convenience, cost-effectiveness and more market linkages in the agri supply chain. As an agri trading commodity platform, we want to focus on developing an ecosystem to facilitate transparent trading in the agriculture industry while offering services such as credit, payments/ escrow, and logistics.
What are your growth plans and strategies for FY 2021-22?
Bijak ventured into the industry as a bookkeeping app and then quickly morphed into an online marketplace mid-2019. The company has seen exponential growth since then as a trading platform. We initially started with one commodity from Kannauj, but today, we oversee trade in over 100 plus perishable commodities. Therefore, the immediate plan is to initiate trade in non-perishable commodities. The app is currently active across 1200 locations in India, and is set to spread its reach in the coming months.
As an agri-tech company, a tech upgrade is in the works. This includes a full-fledged recommendation engine, and tech infrastructure innovations to handle the growing number of transactions. The Bijak app handles 2500 to 3000 tonnes per day and this volume is growing by the day. The logistics services, currently active in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, will soon be expanded to other regions. Similarly, we plan to bring in more non-banking financial companies (NBFCS) and banking partners.
The ultimate aim is to refine the app so that it continues to provide a stellar user experience while scaling up.
What has been the impact of AI and ML in the agriculture supply chain?
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have taken the agriculture industry to a different level. These innovations are eliminating the traditional challenges in the industry by providing efficient solutions while encouraging sustainable agriculture.
The disruptive technologies are empowering farmers and agribusinesses with in depth insights on crop production enhancement, real-time monitoring, harvesting, procurement and logistic solutions. The frontier technology has brought an agricultural revolution which is boosting productivity and enabling smooth processes in the agri value chain.
With Bijak, there is now an availability of a faster go-to-market for yielded crops which eliminates the challenges of delay in procurement and sale of the produce. AI and ML approaches are transforming agriculture in India and spurring a new wave of growth in the industry. We are currently fine-tuning the app's recommendation engine to speed up counterparty discovery and trade. This new development will automatically fetch the top relevant buyers or suppliers for the requesting counterparty, after factoring in everything like rating, price, location, logistics, and availability. This will further cut down the time spent on counterparty discovery by our users.
How do the agri-tech startups contribute to agri-supply chains?
The supply chain is critical in all sectors, especially in agriculture. With new age technology, agri-tech startups are reducing the time from farm to fork while ensuring food safety and quality. The challenges in the supply chain processes are now being eradicated with the emergence of agri-tech startups which are providing end-to-end agri solutions. With the rise of platforms providing market linkages, farmers now have access to more buyers and can sell their produce at much better pricing. AI and ML in agriculture are helping startups in reengineering the value chain to solve both demand- and supply-side issues in the agri sector. They are strengthening the economic conditions of the farmers and agribusinesses and resolving the traditional supply chain challenges in the sector.