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Shilpa Shetty Kundra Ventures into Farm-to-Table with Kisankonnect Investment
Shilpa Shetty Kundra has reportedly invested in an Agritech startup company, Kisankonnect, which is based in Mumbai.
Established in 2020 by Vivek Nirmal and Nidhi Nirmal, Kisankonnect is a new farm-to-table startup brand that focuses on locally grown fresh produce delivered directly to Indian customers. The brand sources its fresh products straight from its network, consisting of 5000 associates from all around the collection centres from various villages, which then deliver conveniently and quickly to customers residing in Pune and Mumbai. Kisankonnect is said to maintain numerous supply chains, which employ state-of-the-art technology and a temperature-controlled environment, into producing healthy and fresh products. Which is a transformed model as corresponded to different E-commerce platforms in the market like Otipy and Big Basket.
Shilpa Shetty Kundra, who has displayed her persistence in her health and fitness journey for many decades, has been promoting positive thoughts about the importance of maintaining a healthy mind and a healthy body. She is known for vigorously participating in the contribution towards the most essential characteristic of the fitness journey, ‘Fresh Meals’. Talking about the new venture with Kisankonnect, Shilpa Shetty commented, “I believe in the idea of a fit and healthy India, and I personally practice and promote this thought wherever possible. I love that the founders of Kisankonnect share the same passion towards this thought. Not only are they solving the problem of safe-to-eat food, but they are also connecting thousands of farmers directly to the consumers, resonating with my thoughts about promoting health in my country, where agriculture is one of the major occupations. Hence I’ve decided to partner with Kisankonnect, who work on soil health, and crop health and have created an amazing tech-enabled supply chain. We do our every bit to protect the nutrition in the fruits and vegetables. Consumers can finally trace and trust their food source on the Kisankonnect App. Our ‘Farm Stores’ also connect with consumers. This is the ‘Aapka Apna Farmers Market’ for this vibrant India!”
Shilpa Shetty Kundra will soon be seen on screen in her next Kannada movie, KD-The Devil, which will be directed by Prem. Followed by a Bollywood film ‘Indian Police Force’ by Rohit Shetty, where Shilpa Shetty will be taking the role of Indian police.
Kisankonnect is among the contemporary companies with a collective objective to unravel the existing concerns of constructing an efficient supply network to provide unprocessed and garden-fresh vegetables and fruits to consumers of Pune, Mumbai, and Shrirampur within the shortest time frame. The founder of Kisankonnect, Vivek Nirmal, expressed in an official statement, “We are very delighted to have Shilpa partnering in our journey of providing fresh and nutritious produce to our customers. We had started as a farmer’s producer company. Our integrated model right from soil testing, and plant biologicals based on ‘Regenerative Agricultural’ are helping thousands of our farmer members to nurture an active and healthy soil. Our unique model ensures better returns for smallholder farmers and fresh and nutritious food for the consumer.”
Nidhi Nirmal, the co-founder of the company also adds, “We are proud to have the largest assortment in the FnV space and service anywhere in Mumbai and Pune within 4-6 hours of ordering. We have multiple slots from where the customers can choose for delivery or they can simply walk into our nearest ‘Farm Stores’.”
According to Vivek Nirmal, it took them approximately three years to patiently plan and set up the model and construct the first FnV supply chain company. The utmost priority of the brand right now is to uphold the idea of labouring at the farm level, which is a model that is widely followed in agricultural profit-making studies to understand the techniques and methodologies the land owners and farmers employ to market. Furthermore, the company also aims to focus highly on waste reduction, establishing powerful and vigorous last-mile services, and achieving superiority in customer experience. Vivek Nirmal comments, “We see ‘Kisankonnect’ is striking a chord with the majority of planned buyers, who value good quality over quick delivery. We are at Rs. 120 Cr ARR (Annualised Revenue Runrate) as of now and we service over one lakh consumers in Pune and Mumbai.”
Since its official launch, the Agritech startup platform has been experiencing some significant activities both in terms of demand and supply. Also, with a considerable Total Addressable Market (TAM) available and tremendous opportunities for startup business representations to be introduced in India, Kisankonnect has been influencing massive attraction from numerous companies as well. If we are to be optimistic about it, this will potentially unravel the challenges of horticulture widely faced by horticulturists, where they receive a lot lesser net profit as corresponded to the amount the consumers spend or pay, due to multiple inefficiencies and intermediaries in the supply network.
