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Rajasthan agri-startup raises ¥40 Million (Rs 2.5 Crore) in seed funding from Japanese investors

EF Polymer is developing sustainable agriculture inputs by making use of organic waste to help the agriculture sector struggling with water and high chemical input requirements.
By Aasiya MG Updated: Apr 21, 2021, 18:23 IST

EF Polymer Private Limited, an agri startup from Rajasthan has raised ¥40 million (Rs. 2.7 crores) in its seed round of funding from the Japanese based venture capital investors MTG Ventures, Inc., Yosemite LLC, Beyond Next Ventures Inc., and an angel investor Tatsuya Suzuki (Representative Director of giftee, Inc.). This was the first case of seed round given to a startup that was born from the OIST Startup Accelerator Program which started in 2018.

"This funding will play an important role in expanding our business and enhancing our technological capabilities. We would like to utilize this funding to first increase our production capacity and employment as well as to expand our sales channels. We are committed to promoting organic farming and the circular economy. With our technology, we believe we can make significant contributions to achieving the SDGs by making our products more widely available.” - Narayan Lal Gurjar, CEO and Founder, EF Polymer

EF Polymer is developing sustainable agriculture inputs by making use of organic waste to help the agriculture sector struggling with water and high chemical input requirements. They have recently developed an innovative product named Fasal Amrit which is said to be “Boon” for farmers struggling with water scarcity in agriculture.

Their major emphasis:

  1. Help the farming sector by offerings pollution-free solutions to solve the water scarcity problem.
  2. Make farmers available organic pesticides and liquid fertilizers in order to bring innovative, pollution-free, and cost-effective solutions for farmers struggling with chemical and high-cost products.

EF Polymer is the Indian subsidiary of EF Polymer KK and primarily focuses on manufacturing, sales and marketing. The parent Japanese entity EF Polymer K.K., is focusing on R&D and collaborative projects to promote organic farming.

“Soon, we believe that our innovative solutions will create additional hopes for farmers who are leaving the agriculture sectors due to insufficient water, high chemical fertilizer requirements, and other problems. By using our products, they will be able to get more yield and more income while reducing the agricultural inputs,” Puran Singh Rajput, co-founder of EF Polymer.

EF Polymer has been also supported by College of Technology & Agriculture Engineering, Udaipur; Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture & Technology, Udaipur;  National Institute of Agriculture Marketing, Jaipur; Social Alpha;  Tata Trust; IIT Kanpur; CiniCell | India; Startup Oasis; Okinawa Insitute of Science and Technology, Japan; Global Climate Launchpad; Solar Impulse Foundation; etc.

EF was set up by Naraytan Lal Gurjar and Puran Singh Rajput, with the help of few friends on a very small scale. They began the business in Rajasthan, but have now reached as far as Okinawa in Japan nad boast of a thin organisation with 7 employees. They are serving customers all around the globe and are further planning to expand their business by capturing larger market share in the agriculture sector and by introducing more such useful products.

In recent, they have collaborated with a few of the best organizations such as Orion Beers Ltd, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, Tata Trust to tackle global level challenges like Zero Waste, Increasing Rice Production, and helping farmers generate more income while using fewer inputs.

The Solar Foundation awarded them with the #1000 Most Efficient Solution for their natural water retention polymer technology and the Carbon Tech Award at the GLobal Climate Launch Pad 2019 in The Netherlands.  The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind has also recognised their product as the best solution developed by students for the agriculture sector in 2019.

“Soon, we believe that our innovative solutions will create additional hopes for farmers who are leaving the agriculture sectors due to insufficient water, high chemical fertilizer requirements, and other problems. By using our products, they will be able to get more yield and more income while reducing the agricultural inputs,” said Puran Singh Rajput, co-founder of EF Polymer.

On behalf of the four investors, Mr. Go Fujita, President, and CEO of MTG Ventures, Inc. commented on the investment, "EF Polymer is a young and talented management team from India. They started up with the aim of solving the water shortage for farmers in the drought-prone Indian state of Rajasthan, and have developed a 100% naturally-derived water-absorbing polymer. Together with OIST, we will support this start-up with high technology and high aspirations to realize a society with a circular economy. This is the second company in Okinawa that MTG Ventures has invested in, following Ryukyu Asteeda. MTG Ventures will continue its activities to support startups in Okinawa while continuing to pay close attention to startups from OIST.”