ONO has built the first-of-its-kind comprehensive Mandi Operating System (mOS) - A platform that helps digitize entire mandi operations and helps various stakeholders in the ecosystem with the data driven decisions.
Empowering Farmers through Technology
Q&A with Rama Rao Kancharapu, Founder and CEO | ONO
Tell us about yourself and why you founded ONO.
This is Rama Kancharapu, Founder & CEO of ONO. Spent close to a decade and half in USA and worked at various global companies likes of E*Trade, Google, TracFone, Trizetto, Suneratech and TechMahindra. I completed BE from Andhra University in 2005 and MBA from Illinois State University, USA. My focus has been on leveraging technology to address systemic challenges and support underserved communities at scale.
ONO was founded to empower farmers and farmer communities in India, to provide an inclusive access to growth opportunities. When we visited more than 677+ Mandis / APMCs we found that the real challenges farmers face today in accessing market data and formal credit was mind boggling. While every aspect of farmers and farmer ecosystem players data such as crop details, farmer details, transaction details etc. are available in private books of Mandi / APMC agents. Not having this data is causing real damage to the entire ecosystem including farmers. Having this data in an organized manner could have enabled the entire ecosystem to benefit in multifold, access to formal credit, supply and demand visibility, reducing wastage, timely harvesting decisions etc.
How is ONO leveraging technology to empower farmers in India, and what specific tools are provided to enhance their productivity and market access?
ONO has built the first-of-its-kind comprehensive Mandi Operating System (mOS) - A platform that helps digitize entire mandi operations and helps various stakeholders in the ecosystem with the data driven decisions.
ONO CONNECT - A farmer app that helps farmers to find real-time auction prices at Mandi/APMC and also provides the arrival visibility at Mandis to make right decisions about harvesting timings.
ONO CLICK - A Commission Agent / Trader Platform to digitize day-to-day mandi operations and provide insights about various mandi real-time prices. With CLICK more than ever, each Commission Agent / Trader now gets the benefit of tracking their cash flows, managing timely collections, real-time business insights and improving partner relationships at its best.
ONO TRADE - A Mandi-to-Mandi Trading Platform that enables every trader at Mandi to discover daily crop prices across Mandis and access fully vetted credible traders at other mandis to exchange the value without a fear of getting cheated.
ONO CASH - A Neo-Lending Platform that enables direct access to formal credit based on transactional data recorded on ONO CLICK and alternative mandi intelligence (AMI). Today with ONO, farmers are able to take money from the commodity sale proceedings on the same day within a few minutes of transaction executed at no additional cost.
In what ways can access to real-time market information impact the decision-making process for farmers using platforms like ONO?
Access to near real-time arrivals, market and price information fundamentally changes the way farmers approach in decision making of harvesting timings, selecting the right mandi to liquidate, and finding a fully vetted commission agent / trader without a fear of collections.
Optimized Pricing Decisions: Farmers can identify the best time and right mandi to sell their produce to maximize the profit.
Efficient Resource Allocation: Insights into supply & demand trends guide crop harvesting timings.
Transparency: Knowledge of prevailing market prices reduces exploitation by intermediaries.
Platforms like ONO empower farmers to be proactive, making data-driven decisions that maximize their income and reduce the losses.
What critical challenges in the agricultural landscape does ONO address through its suite of platforms?
ONO is tackling critical issues in agriculture industry such as:
Timely Access To Formal Credit - More than 80% of horticulture farmers take informal advances (unsecure) from Commission Agents & Traders at Mandi and yet, they receive only a small portion of their working capital needs. Almost ZERO unsecured loans from regulated entities or NBFCs. In addition, most of the farmers do not receive sales proceedings immediately after the sale and typically they have to wait anywhere from 15 days to 90 days.
Supply & Demand Intelligence - Almost 90% of the price fluctuations results from unpredictable arrivals (over/under supply) which can be minimized through data democratization. Whereas 10% of price fluctuations happen due to uncontrolled scenarios such as weather, crop deceases and low yields.
Market Access - Barriers between farmers and markets to ensure transparent and equitable trade opportunities.
Fragmented & Inefficient Supply Chain - More than 50% of a commodity cost accounts to two major expenses 1) Logistics Cost - typically the logistic providers charge 1.5X to carry from a point-A to point-B which results in overall hike of a commodity price. 2) Wastage - especially in Horticulture most of the crops result in more than 35% of wastage due to the number of hops they make before they get on to end consumers.
How does ONO plan to expand its reach to more mandis, and what benefits does this expansion hold for both farmers and markets?
Team ONO has physically visited and prepared a detailed directory for more than 1000+ Mandis across 20+ states. We are in a good position to scale it rapidly across 1000+ Mandis due to its initial on ground research at these Mandis. In addition, our mOS platform is fully designed to readily launch at any PAN India mandi without any further development or customization.
Of course! At this scale we will be able to access more than 20 millions of farmers' data at a lowest CAC and we will be in position to underwrite millions of farmers based on their transactional data and alternative mandi intelligence (AMI) without any security. In addition, these volumes of data will start contributing to our prediction models price predictions, supply & demand intelligence at scale. This will hugely benefit not only the farmer but the entire ecosystem in making right and timely decisions and eliminates significant wastages.
What role does innovation play in driving sustainable growth in Indian agriculture, and how is ONO committed to fostering such innovation?
The agriculture industry is a very vast and complex subject. Unfortunately, the complexity in this space is multifold and varied levels. Each crop behaves differently and at different levels such pre-harvest and post-harvest and at various stages within the supply chain is totally different. In addition, age-old unorganized practices at Mandis & APMCs make it even more challenging.
According to us, the role of innovation specifically for agriculture can’t come from the replication of other industrial (domain) disruptions/innovations. For example SME Lending (or) Commerce / Supply Chain FinTech (or) e-commerce (or) quick commerce (or) edtech innovations can’t sustain / doesn’t really make a dent in solving the actual agriculture supply chain problems. This domain requires a complete paradigm shift in looking at bringing sustainable innovation from foundational elements not by application from other industries.
We believe the way we looked at the problem is totally different and from a foundational perspective as to why these APMCs /MANDIs exist in India and what was the reason for originating these physical marketplaces in the first place and the role these mandis have played in today as well. This helped us understand the importance of these mandis and the positive impact that these mandi players drive to farmer livelihoods, was an eyeopener. So, we strongly believe that strengthening the mandi ecosystem by bringing innovation will benefit farmers in multiple ways including timely access to formal credit, better price realization and significant reduction in wastage and costs.
What trends are currently shaping the agricultural technology (agritech) landscape in India, and how might these trends influence future investments and developments?
In my analysis, Agricultural technology today is still in a deceptive state like 15/20 years ago how AI was. In order to come out of deceptive to disruptive we need to think more on fundamental approach than re-application (as described in Q6). In the last decade and a half many startups focused on post-harvest e-commerce / supply chain models and almost none succeeded or can’t really show that they scaled with positive returns. I believe that current trends are derived from those learnings and more and more innovations are focused on data, deep tech and bio tech solutions as compared to commerce / trade /supply chain efficiencies.
How is the funding environment for agritech startups evolving in India, and what factors are attracting investors to this sector?
I would say it is not so great as compared to previous years. Especially the last couple of years. I believe investors still feel that this sector is still in a nascent state and are going through iterations and keenly looking for right business models that could scale and sustain in the long-term. Two, given the complexity and size of impact on underserved communities, it is still an interest of impact investors.
Please provide the details about any previous funding rounds, including the lead investors and the primary objectives of those investments?
$1.3 Mn Seed Round and Aeravti Ventures.
Primary objective is to launch ONO CASH, ONO TRADE, ONO GAADI and expand ONO CLICK and increase the Mandi presence from 7 to 100.
The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of AgriTechTomorrow
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