Hot Startup - Water Farms with a Tap on Your Phone
Vinfinet Technologies This
young co manufactures devices that assist in remote controlled irrigation
Vijay Bhaskar Reddy Dinnepu spent
most of his childhood on his family's field in rural Andhra Pradesh, sitting in
front of the irrigation motor pump, devotedly monitoring it. On days when he
was distracted by friends and wandered off, the motor would crash due to
voltage fluctuations, earning him a beating.
Those salutary lessons ended up
spurring his entrepreneurial ambitions.After a 12-year stint at technology
corporations like Intel and Cisco, Dinnepu, an IIT-Madras graduate, launched
Vinfinet Technologies Ltd to provide automated irrigation solutions to Indian
farmers.
“A lot of my friends ask me, what I
am doing...“ said the 38-year-old entrepreneur who has bootstrapped his
five-year old venture so far, and is aiming to strike partnerships with large
corporations to build scale for his company.
In 2012, the company launched its
first product, Kisanraja. The box-shaped device sits next to the motor. With
it, phones become remote controls for irrigation pumps. All it needs is power
supply and a working sim card.
Through Interactive Voice Response
(IVR) in the local language, the device informs the farmer when the power is
back on and kick-starts the motor if the farmer chooses to. The device is
designed for an Indian setting where power supply is unscheduled, and farmers
are housed far away from their fields.
Advanced models also alert the
farmer when the water level goes down in the borewell or when there is an
attempt to forcibly remove the device.
Investors who back ventures focused
on the agri-sector are of the view that startups enabling efficiency in
agriculture through technology will gain attention. “ T he key is good margins
and di f ferenti ation i n t he pro duc t sourcing strategy,“ said Srikrishna
Ramamoorthy, Partner at Unitus Seed Fund India, which specialises in impact
investing.
At present some 15,000 farmers use
the device developed by Vinfinet. For farmers like Kesu Patil, owner of 2.5
acres of farmland in Pura village of Mysore district, who lives nearly 20 kms
away from his farm, the device has proven to be more than just useful.
“Earlier, I had to keep a man at the
farm just to monitor the motor. With this instrument, I saved that money and
got return on the investment in a few months,“ said Patil. For Dinnepu, who
estimates the number of irrigation pumps in use on Indian farms to be in the
region of two crore, the challenge now is to ensure challenge now is to ensure
that more farmers start using his device.
“Large companies such as IFFCO,
Mahind ra, TAFE and ITC already have deep penetration into the agricultural
market. If we could partner with them, it would help us make life easier for
thousands of other farmers,“ he said.
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Nirupama V
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ET3JUL15
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