Pioneering Ventures has acquired Indian agri-tech company Lateral Praxis. The move is aimed at enhancing its access to tech-enabled solutions for the food supply chain including information access, apps, data analytics and risk mitigation.
The acquisition recognises significant shifts in the Indian food system in recent years to improve operational efficiencies and in supply chain activities. The systematic generation of data intelligence also allows to create valuable services and improve decision making in the food ecosystem.
Lateral Praxis has worked closely with Central and state governments, ministries and departments, along with farmer communities at village/panchayat level to build, configure and implement knowledge-based systems. The Mumbai-based company founded by Suniti Gupta, an agri tech expert, develops online payment platforms, information aggregation and data mining for a varied customer base.
“End-to-end supply chain digitisation has been a core pillar of our strategy. We have been working successfully with Lateral Praxis for many years and I am confident that the team will further boost our technology and data expertise. The acquisition is an important milestone in the implementation of our strategy to accelerate the development of our fully integrated food technology platform and help us drive large-scale transformation across the food ecosystem through data intelligence-based services,” said Dr Pablo Erat, co-founder, Pioneering Ventures.
“Our experience and core competencies will be augmented well by Pioneering Ventures’ expertise and presence across the food supply chain,” said Gupta.
Pioneering Ventures has a portfolio of five tech-enabled growth businesses and two pilot ventures. These are FarmLink, which is India's supply chain for vegetables and commodities; Citrus Processing India, the country’s largest citrus concentrate producer; MilkLane, a daiy producer in the private sector adhering to Swiss standards; Desai Fruits Venture, a branded fruit company; Samaaru, a farmer-centric agri-finance and value chain services platform; and DistriCo, an integrated last-mile distribution platform.