AquaExchange, a firm digitizing the operations of India’s fish farming and shrimp industry, recently obtained USD 3 million in equity funding in a round led by Accion Venture Lab, a unit of US-based nonprofit Accion, and Endiya Partners, an India-based venture capital fund, with additional participation from unspecified ongoing shareholders in the company. Neither the breakdown of the funding by investor nor the portions of shares taken by each has been released. Among the goals of the capital injection is to strengthen AquaExchange’s “e-commerce operations and… farm automation footprint to over [100,000] acres of farms by… March 2023.”
Founded in 2020, AquaExchange offers services such as: (1) an e-commerce app for purchasing feed and other inputs via credit; (2) rental devices that leverage the internet to enable remote control and automation of tasks such as feeding, monitoring and aeration; and (3) assistance for small-scale seafood farmers in selling their harvest, including via transparent pricing and payouts via mobile money.
Founded in 2015, Endiya Partners has a portfolio of 27 companies as of 2022, spanning sectors such as financial technology (fintech) and healthcare. The firm generally invests up to USD 2 million per company, and it manages assets totaling USD 100 million as of 2022.
Accion created Accion Venture Lab in 2011 to serve as its “seed-stage investment arm.” The mission of the investment vehicle is to support “technology and [other] new approaches that help underserved people and small businesses benefit from the world’s formal economy.” The majority of Accion Venture Lab’s 54 investees – as of 2022 – are in the microfinance and fintech sectors.
Founded in 1961, Accion is a nonprofit that seeks to alleviate poverty by offering services such as microenterprise loans and business training. During 2021, the NGO worked with partner organizations in dozens of countries that together held savings from 11 million people and small enterprises, issued 8 million loans and wrote 6 million insurance policies. In addition to Accion Venture Lab, Accion invests through Accion Global Investments and Accion Frontier Investments as well as conducting research via The Center for Financial Inclusion.
By Hasnat Aslam, Research Associate
Sources and Additional Resources
Accion press release
https://www.accion.org/aquaculture-fintech-platform-aquaexchange-raises-3-million-from-endiya-partners-and-accion-venture-lab
AquaExchange homepage
https://aquaexchange.com
AquaExchange app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aquaexchange.app
Endiya Partners homepage
https://endiya.com
About Accion Venture Lab description
https://www.accion.org/how-we-work/invest/accion-venture-lab
Accion homepage
https://www.accion.org
Accion 2021 annual report
https://www.accion.org/accion-2021-annual-report
Previous MicroCapital story on Accion Venture Lab
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-accion-venture-lab-invests-equity-in-terramagna-fintech-using-satellite-imagery-to-help-agribusinesses-lend-to-farmers-in-brazil/
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