AgriTech Clover Invests $2 mn in its new D2C brand Deep Rooted

Agritech startup, Clover has launched it’s direct to consumer brand Deep Rooted. Deep Rooted app is also available on both Andriod and iOS. The D2C brand is a demand-backed supply chain solution for fruits and vegetables. It will focus on quality, consistency, traceability and also a high degree of predictability. In the platform, Clover will invest over $2mn in creating farmer-facing input-output technology. The startup will further invest in supply chain and cold storage capacities and communication.

Deep Rooted aims to focus on catering to an urban city’s need for fruits and vegetables via a “consumer demand-led cultivation” process. It will follow an “omnichannel” strategy to cater to existing consumer shopping preference. Speaking at the launch, Avinash B.R. one of the co-founders at Clover said, “With Deep Rooted, our goal is to be India’s largest virtual farmer, facilitated by our full-stack agronomy intervention on the supply side; and an omnichannel presence, along with a consumer-facing app on the demand side. Consumers will get consistent access to zero-contamination, high-quality fruits and vegetables while farmers can experience up to a 3x increase in yield and income improvements.”

Clover’s experience in B2B allows DR to get a head-start in launching a consumer-focussed B2C brand. The former already is a supplier to over 90 customers in over 175 locations based in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The Covid-19 lockdown, further, led the company to bring forward its B2C launch. It gathered valuable first-hand experience in consumer tastes and preferences in the fruits and vegetable category.

Avinash shared, “Our research conducted over September-October last year found that consumer behaviour is not to plan the buying of fruits and vegetables but to shop for it when the shortage is noticed. We also saw that consumers are slowly reverting to the pre-Covid preference. They want to have the option to shop at neighbourhood Kirana and modern trade stores. Deep Rooted will invest in growing its distribution to 500 customers. We are brand building to aggregate demand over multiple channels, including online via our own consumer app and web e-commerce presence.”

About Deep Rooted

The company has stated that Deep Rooted will stand on the three important pillars of ‘Fresh’, ‘Clean’ and ‘Community’. It aims to deliver most of its produce fresh. Further, the supply chain aims to deliver under 24 hours from farms primarily less than 150 km away from urban cities. It will supply high-quality fruits and vegetables primarily from its owned greenhouse and hydroponic farms. It also has a network of over 100 small-medium scale land hold farmers.

Under the guidance of a team of 10 plus agronomists, the startup will grow all highly perishable vegetables. They guide the farmers from the “seed-to-harvest” stage. Mostly greenhouse and hydroponically grown produce are contamination-free.

Rooted in the local community, the brand is steadfast in its focus to strike an equitable balance between farmers and consumers. Farmers should benefit from technology inputs that increase farm productivity at scale. Thus, they will have access to consumer demand that provides an opportunity to increase incomes and the consumer should benefit from consistent access to high quality produce.