Everything you need to know about the Microsoft supporting the agritech start-ups in India

On Wednesday, Microsoft in a press release said that it will launch a program for Agritech Startups in India. This program will further help startups to industry-specific solutions, scale, and grow with access to deep technology, business, and marketing resources.

About the program

According to the statement that Microsoft published, agritech startups in India are transforming agriculture. They are developing innovative digital solutions to maximize productivity, improve market linkages, increase supply chain efficiency, and provide greater access to inputs for agri-businesses.

So, to bolster the country’s startup ecosystem, this program offers the best-in-class tech and business enablement resources to help agritech startups innovate and scale fast. Moreover, startups can also get access to Azure FarmBeats, which can help them focus on core value-adds instead of the undifferentiated heavy lifting of data engineering.

Azure FarmBeats is available on Azure Marketplace and it enables aggregation of agricultural datasets across providers. It also generates actionable insights with the help of AI/ML models.

Sangeeta Bavi, who is the Director at Startup Ecosystem, Microsoft India also commented:

Sustainable agricultural technology can transform the global food landscape. Agritech startup innovations are addressing some of our key challenges connected to agriculture and food production. The Microsoft for Agritech Startups program is among the early steps in our journey towards empowering these startups in India and transforming global agricultural practices.

Scope of the program via Microsoft

Microsoft has built the program on three levels. It will offer business resource benefits and tech enablement. They are:

1. For all startups:  It will provide Azure Benefits to Seed to Series C startups. This will include benefits like free credits unlimited technical support and help with Azure Marketplace onboarding.

2. Co-sell startups: For these Startups, it will help them to market their enterprise-ready solutions. The benefits will also include joint go-to-market strategies, technical support and new sales opportunities with Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.

3. Co-create solutions: For startups that are looking to create digital agriculture solutions, Microsoft will help them to co-build customized solutions with Azure FarmBeats. Moreover, they can do this without investing in deep data engineering resources. Using Azure FarmBeats, startups can acquire, aggregate and process agricultural data and rapidly develop their own AI/ML models.

The program will bring startups, corporates, industry bodies, governments, and venture capital firms together. Further, it aims to create a shared platform for learning and innovation. With its strong focus on startups and advanced technology resources, Microsoft will help agritech startups build solutions, scale across global markets, and grow with industry-leading partnerships.

What is Azure Marketplace?

Azure Marketplace includes IT and developer solutions built on Azure or used within Azure subscriptions themselves. It is available within Azure Government regions and supports a virtual machine and application offers. Users can avail offers during the standard publishing process.

It supports credit card payments or invoicing and the Marketplace requires customers to have an Azure Active Directory ID and an active Azure subscription. Also, it helps users to have all tech-enabled accessories necessary for a seller to go online.

About Azure FarmBeats

Microsoft launched the preview of Azure FarmBeats. It is a multi purpose-built, industry-specific solution accelerator that Microsoft has built on top of Azure to give actionable insights from data. Further, it is a B2B offering available in Azure Marketplace. Also, it enables aggregation of agriculture datasets across providers and generation of actionable insights by building artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) models based on fused datasets. So, agribusinesses can focus on their core value-add rather than the undifferentiated heavy lifting of data engineering.

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