Bengaluru : Aeravti Ventures, the early-stage venture capital firm, has led a $1.2 million Pre-Series A funding round in Agri-Finance startup ONO. The round also saw participation from Angels and Tremis Capital.
This marks Aeravti Ventures’ second investment in ONO, having previously led the company’s seed round, reinforcing the fund’s conviction in ONO’s vision of building India’s data and AI-led post-harvest infrastructure for Agri-SMEs across markets.
Commenting on the investment, Rishabh Singh, Managing Partner of Aeravti Ventures, said: “ONO is solving one of the most critical infrastructure gaps within Indian agriculture, building trust, transparency and financial accessibility across post-harvest supply chains. The company’s ability to leverage data and AI to unlock market access and reduce inefficiencies at scale strongly aligns with our investment thesis at Aeravti Ventures. Having partnered with ONO since its seed stage, we continue to remain highly confident in the team’s execution capabilities and long-term vision.”
Rama Rao Kancharapu, Founder & CEO, ONO, said: “Agricultural supply chain continues to operate with significant inefficiencies due to lack of structured data, trusted networks and timely access to finance. At ONO, we are building a technology and intelligence layer for the post-harvest ecosystem that enables stakeholders to make faster, smarter and more reliable decisions,and more importantly, get timely access to fair credit. With Aeravti Ventures continuing to back us in this journey, we are focused on scaling our lending and market infrastructure capabilities across India.”
Founded by Rama Rao Kancharapu and David Pokuri, ONO is leveraging data and AI to solve critical challenges in India’s agricultural value chain, including access to formal credit, solving operational inefficiencies and supporting trusted long-distance market linkages for Agri-SMEs.
Recognising the lack of structured data and technology adoption in agriculture, ONO built a data-first fintech and market linkage platform that enables smarter proprietary underwriting and decision-making across the post-harvest supply chain, which is validated by a 0.05% NPA across 100Cr of co-lending. Its platform provides farmers and Agri-SMEs with real-time intelligence around pricing, volumes, logistics and market behaviour, enabling faster payments, improved price realisation and reduced transaction risks.
Today, ONO operates across 12 states and over 125 districts, serving more than 1.3 lakh ecosystem participants including farmers, commission agents, traders, transporters and buyers. The platform has over 2,000 paid subscribers and has facilitated over Rs 200 crore in beneficiary payouts while enabling the movement of more than 25,000 metric tonnes of produce through long-distance markets, often spanning over 500 kilometres.
Through its proprietary Data and AI-led onboarding infrastructure, ONO has also significantly reduced frauds and defaults in long-haul agri trade transactions to below 2%, compared to industry levels ranging between 25% and 30%.
As part of its next phase of growth, ONO has acquired a significant stake in an NBFC to deepen its lending capabilities and strengthen credit access for underserved Agri-SMEs. The company is additionally preparing for a larger Series A raise as it looks to further scale its presence across India and strengthen its technology and financial infrastructure offerings.
The fresh capital will be utilised towards strengthening ONO’s technology platform, expanding its presence across newer markets, deepening its lending infrastructure and accelerating ecosystem growth across the agricultural value chain.
