Ujjay

On a mission to enable farmers to improve their ROI through technology, Ujjay has created a technology enabled platform which provide one stop solution for all the farming needs. Ujjay is a B2C value chain platform with Phygital model using FaaS (Farming as a Service) as a hook point.

Ujjay was founded by three batch-mates of MBA course from S P Jain Institute of Mgmt & Research, Mumbai with more than a decade of individual industry experience in high growth companies, two of them with past Entrepreneurial stints and one with farming background.

In order to cater to farmers across the value chain, Ujjay now provides,

Ujjay was founded by three batch-mates of MBA course from S P Jain Institute of Mgmt & Research, Mumbai with more than a decade of individual industry experience in high growth companies, two of them with past Entrepreneurial stints and one with farming background.

Our journey began in 2018, when UJJAY (previously Farmringg), got incubated with ICRISAT, and started as a pilot in the Siddipet district of Telangana bringing forth the concept of 'Uberisation of farm equipment'. Ujjay was also awarded for its innovative model at the ICFA Start-up Awards in 2018 by Honble Minister Suresh Prabhu.

Nitin (Co-founder) receiving ICFA Start-up Awards in 2018 by Hon. Minister Suresh Prabhu

Consequent experiments in FaaS (farming as a service) and continued efforts to grow organically in renting equipments such as Harvesters, Transplanters brought forth the scaling limitations of migratory equipment, it also highlighted the need for local influencers (Ujjay Sarathi's) to play a role in partnership with Ujjay to bring forward additional services to farmers. Which led to our first pivot of becoming B2B2C venture with focusing on crop specific, high payback <$2000 capex equipment for FaaS.

Our 1st Ujjay Sarathi outlet in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh

Driven by these learnings, Ujjay ventured into 2019 with a vision to grow at a faster pace through it's network of Ujjay Sarathi's who were now enabled entrepreneurs through their partnership with us. The results spoke for themselves when we achieved a growth of 7x from a revenue number of 55 lakhs to 2.8 Cr serving more than 7000 farmers and also bagged an award for the best social enterprise by Action for India.

This utility of the network also came to the fore when because of Covid, traditional supply chains and harvest evacuation methods were disrupted and Ujjay was able to do 1.3 cr of turnover in the first quarter itself. What Covid also highlighted is the need for technological intervention and reduced dependence on physical interventions which have proven to be vulnerable. 

Also, what also became apparent was that big institutions such as OEM's, Input Companies, NBFC's have very limited information and access to the customer, the farmer. Which is where the next step in business model transformation is taking Ujjay, to put the farmer first, engage with him through technology and deliver services through its network of Ujjay Sarathi's.

Ujjay’s technology platform which gives scalability & facilitates data centric approach

There's a few insights which led us to the current approach. Firstly, the fundamental problem in the Indian agriculture ecosystem is fragmentation and small land holdings which make technologies/advanced machinery unviable to own/implement. We wish to use technology to make famers unite and come together to make expensive technology/machinery affordable for all. To approach farming as a collective activity within the community. 

Secondly, everyone approaches farmers with transactional mindset but the reality closer to ground is that it is a lifestyle for the farmers and they are both proud and emotional about farming. Their social life/status/livelihood is all connected to it which is why a pure economic approach doesn't appeal to them. We wish to bring in the social angle to reach out and connect to farmers through our app/platform.

We've already seen the scaling potential of the structure and by adding technological adoption/gaining access of the farmer directly we will be adding a lot more value to the farmers.

There are several start-ups operating in this space but most of them operate in the B2B space. We wish to go B2C with Ujjay Sarathi's as our partners and being a one stop shop for all their needs with more focus on farm gate value addition in market linkages.