Amsterdam, February 15, 2022: Rockstart, global early stage investor, announces its co-investment in GreenPod Labs, agri-biotech startup from its AgriFood portfolio. The startup has raised € 500k pre-seed round led by Indian Angel Network (IAN) with Rockstart as a co-investor. The startup aims to utilize the investment to strengthen its R&D foundation and commercially scale product portfolio. The funding will also be directed towards expanding the R&D and operations team.
Founded in 2019 by Deepak Rajmohan and Vijay Anand, GreenPod Labs intends to minimize fresh produce loss by introducing cost-effective packaging solutions. The company has developed biotech-based packaging sachets that extend the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables by eliminating the need for cold storage and cold supply chains. GreenPod Labs targets farmers, distributors, retailers, and eCommerce platforms with crop-specific solutions that increase their shelf life at ambient temperatures.
Even after being the second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables, India losses over 40% of the fresh produce before it reaches the consumers. Each year, the country bears an economic loss ranging over $ 12 billion due to the lack of proper storage facilities. At GreenPod Labs, we are committed to solving this issue by developing cost-effective storage solutions. Our core objective is to create sustainable packaging products to minimize agricultural food wastage in India. With the recent funding, we plan to bolster our R&D foundation, both for biotech products and data science platforms. Also, we look forward to commercially scaling our three core products this year.Deepak Rajmohan, Co-Founder, GreenPod Labs
GreenPod Labs is revolutionizing the Agri-biotech industry. They have been building a range of innovative biotech-based solutions for prolonging the life of fresh produce at ambient temperature. It is a one-of-its-kind initiative that caters to agricultural producers, distributors, and retailers to help them extend the fresh produce shelf life during transport and storage by 40%. We are delighted with our association and look forward to their forthcoming business expansion and growth.Uday Chatterjee, Lead Investor, IAN
We first invested in GreenPod Labs in 2020 because we believed in the co-founders and their mission to create organic solutions to extend shelf life of fresh produce post harvest, thus reducing the huge food waste issue. The R&D team has developed impressive products specifically for temperate climates and onboarded a healthy pipeline of customers. Today they are ready for growth. We are looking forward to the next phase together.Mark Durno, Managing Partner AgriFood, Rockstart
Providing customizable biotech packaging sachets, GreenPod Labs is looking forward to launching products for three crops. The company is also working on developing four more products this year.
Indian Angel Network is India’s first and world’s largest business angel network with close to 500 members across the world, comprising the who’s who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs. With investors from 12 countries, IAN’s presence spans 7 locations, which includes cities in India and the UK. The network is sector agnostic and has funded start-ups across 17 sectors in India and 7 other countries growing global footprint companies. With an excellent track record, IAN has been giving excellent cash exits year-on-year to its investor-members, for the last 11 years. Some of its marquee investee companies include Druva, Box8, Sapience Analytics, WOW Momos, Consure, Fareye amongst many others.
About Rockstart
Rockstart is an early stage investor that empowers purpose-driven founders across three domains: Energy, AgriFood, and Emerging Technologies.
Rockstart invests in early-stage startups from each of the three funds and provides access to capital, market, and expertise by connecting founders with co-investors, mentors, partners, corporates, and the wider Rockstart network.
Rockstart has invested in more than 350 startups and its alumni value to date is more than €1.6bn. Rockstart is an international team of 45+ professionals dedicated to empowering purpose-driven founders to become scalable and drive positive change on a global scale. Rockstart has notable exits such asWercker, Dan.com, Hubs.Com, Bouw7, iClinic, and s and Brincr. The company has offices in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Bogota.
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