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India hosts numerous legacy institutions in agriculture, has a thriving corporate presence and a dynamic civil society, plenty of technology talent and a policy environment that focuses on rural development and is designed to work towards enhancing farmers’ incomes. Yet, agricultural innovations have failed to reach and/or benefit lives of the 75% of India’s farmers who are categorized as small and marginal farmers (with landholdings of less than two hectares) (NITI Ayog, 2015). One of the primary reasons for this fail is the lack of a formal structured bridge to connect the technology provider to the target user. There is a need to integrate the efforts of the state government, civil society and CSRs to develop interventions which answer the needs of the farmer communities and work with them to solve these challenges in a sustainable manner to create an irreversible impact on their lives.

About India Agritech Incubation Network

Indian Agritech Incubation Network (IAIN) is an initiative by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Social Alpha that envisions to create an enabling ecosystem for innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions for smallholder farmers in order to help them become more productive, profitable and empowered. IAIN will drive ecosystem-level collaborations to improve incomes of smallholder farmers, reduce input costs while improving quality, increase productivity at the farm level, reduce post-harvest losses and provide better market access including value chain enhancements.

Launched in 2019, IAIN adopts an integrated approach to foster ecosystem-level collaboration amongst state government, agricultural universities, corporates, industry bodies and grassroots resource institutions to ensure a seamless flow of knowledge, technology, and expertise to benefit the community and the start-ups. The programme recognizes that the end-user is ‘sticky’ and there is a need to drive adoption at the last mile through pilots, product validations, knowledge and hiring centers and end-user financing. The programme design has an in-built focus on continuous learning and knowledge sharing through periodic stakeholder knowledge dissemination workshops and anecdotal case studies of field impact.

Agri-Allied Activities

Each year, IAIN collaborates with the farming community and experts to identify critical problems faced on-ground. Agritech start-ups working to address the problems are open to apply to the program during the application cycle.

Offerings

Pilot Opportunities

Sandbox facility to test, validate and pilot innovations/projects on-ground

Funding & Investment

Access to seed investment and/or other funding opportunities

Network

Access to a large investor and donor network

Access To Infrastructure

Access to state-of-the-art technology incubation space with high-quality labs, equipment for refining and testing. As well as access to shared office space and amenities

Product Development Support

Assistance in product development; designing, rapid prototyping and design for manufacturing

Agri-business Expertise & Mentorship

Dedicated agri-business experts to assist with business planning, go-to-market strategy, overall advisory and mentorship by a set of qualified global and local experts

Capacity Building Support

Curated capacity building sessions

On-ground Feedback

Practical on-the-ground feedback from the farmer community, grassroot non-profits, agriculture experts, corporate and government bodies

Business Development Support

Support services such as accounting, compliance, taxation, legal, IP, etc.

Our Selected Startups For Year 1

IAIN Impact

Impact Stories

Come join the IAIN movement

iain@socialalpha.org