Anand Chandra On Raising $275 Million To Build An Agritech Platform To Streamline India’s Agricultural Ecosystem

In the startup ecosystem, building a company from the ground up without extensive capital is an impressive feat, as Anand Chandra has demonstrated. But building one in agriculture—a sector with deeply embedded challenges—is a story of grit, vision, and tenacity.

Anand’s company, Arya Collateral has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Quona Capital, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp, Lightrock, and Stride Ventures.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Anand chose agriculture because of its enduring necessity, stable demand, and untapped potential in India’s diverse agroclimatic zones.
• His time at ICICI Bank taught him invaluable lessons in decision-making, customer focus, and process-building, which he later applied to his own venture.
• Arya Collateral targeted untapped primary and secondary markets, establishing a unique model in rural India by providing storage, financing, and market access for farmers.
• Starting with limited capital, Anand and his co-founders minimized costs and leaned on technology to build efficient, scalable processes from day one.
• Unlike many tech startups, Arya Collateral prioritized profitability and sustainability, which shielded it during the funding slowdown and COVID challenges.
• Anand strategically balanced debt and equity, leveraging his banking background to secure lower-cost financing while minimizing equity dilution.
• Arya’s strict adherence to financial compliance and sound fiscal management has built lender trust, supporting its growth trajectory.

 

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About Anand Chandra:

Anand is the founder of Ayra Collateral. He graduated from Agricultural Sciences and received an MBA with a specialization in Agribusiness Management from MANAGE in 2004. He has 8 years of experience in Agricommodity-Based financing.

Anand has earned deep insights into the movement/marketing of a wide range of agricultural commodities and the development of business in most parts of India.

Anand has also gained a good amount of experience restarting a commodity-based finance business, which involved facing huge challenges.
He has implemented processes to take care of TAT, Risk, and other operational issues

Anand has been with ICICI Bank as the National Product Head for the Agri-Commodity Finance Business. He has been instrumental in developing the product and its associated processes since its inception.

Anand has been a part of the prestigious “Accessing Global Markets” program at Cornell University.

Connect with Anand Chandra:

• LinkedIn
• TheOrg
• Zoom.info
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: All righty. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Deal Maker Show. So today we have an amazing guest joining us. you know We’re going to be talking about all the good stuff that we like to hear, like building, scaling, financing. ah We’re going to be talking about why he got started in first place, ah how they got started with not the amount of capital that you would think about you know starting a hypergrowth company, and also things like thinking about customer needs, competition, as well as how to think about problem solving.

Alejandro Cremades: Right? And and why? They thought that the problem that they were embarking on was meaningful enough in order to take action. So brace yourself for a very inspiring conversation today. And without further ado, let’s welcome our guest, Anand Chandra. Welcome to the show.

Anand Chandra: Thank you, Alain Andrew, for inviting me on the show.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in India, give us a walk through memory lane.

Anand Chandra: It’s a pleasure.

Alejandro Cremades: How was life growing up for you?

Anand Chandra: Life has been good. Earlier I had some you know dreams of going to US, but then but by the time I graduated from college, it was well settled that India will be the land of opportunity. so So try to stay put and do something relevant for the country.

Alejandro Cremades: So out of all things, sciences and agriculture is really what they capture your attention. You know, why why that combination and and especially combining science? I mean, I know that engineering and and all of that good stuff, you know, there’s a lot of pressure culturally to really become an engineer or a doctor in India. But in your case, you combine that with something quite unique, which you say agriculture.

Anand Chandra: So if you look at all the sectors across the world, they will have ups and downs, like engineering, they will be computer engineers in demand, they will be all IT engineers in demand, the doctors, you know, agriculture is um is a subject which is a need of the art, which people still People need food. So you need agriculture. That’s one of the sector which is very stable sector and Considering the country in which I am born with 16 agro-climatic zones ah We can produce anything and everything it opens up a lot of challenges which needs to be addressed so a much more demanding sector I would say and ja Challenging I would say which ask for a lot of courage to handle so that fascinated me

Alejandro Cremades: And then obviously after your studies, then you enter the market of becoming you know an employee. um know And they um you basically join ICICI. And there, you kind of like scale through the ranks you know from regional sales manager to then becoming a product head you know all the way up. you know Right before, you got started with starting your own business. So I guess over the course of those close to nine years with ICICI,

Alejandro Cremades: How was that journey like for you?

Anand Chandra: journey was tremendous. At a very young age, I should thank the leadership team at ICICI bank, we got a tremendous opportunity to experiment and learn. When you get an opportunity to experiment and learn, there’s nothing better than that in a job profile, you were able to experiment, you were able to take those decisions, the decision making was far. So a lot of things you will see at ARIA, what we have developed in last 12 plus years are mostly what we have learned at ICCA bank on building those systems, building those processes. It was a very well, I would say, great and amazing experience at ICCA bank, which helped us to start something on our own.

Alejandro Cremades: But also, it has tons of employees in this company. I mean, how many employees does the company have?

Anand Chandra: As a company, we have close to 3,000 plus employees who are different.

Alejandro Cremades: but that but that but but But obviously, now that’s with ARIA, but with ICICI bank, you had the exposure to a big organization there.

Anand Chandra: a

Alejandro Cremades: How how many employees?

Anand Chandra: So while we were there, they were around 40, 45,000. Now I think it’s running into lakhs.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow. I mean, that’s saying incredible. now Now, when you had that type of exposure to such a big organization, what were some of the biggest takes that that you got from the experience there when it comes to structure, to to the corporate organization, to team building, to culture, all of that? like What were some of your biggest takeaways?

Anand Chandra: Some of my biggest takeaways were those hard decisions which were taken at ICSE Bank, something which I have learned from the leadership team. I can take some three, four examples to elaborate. For example, Madhi Puri Bhujman, who is currently the chairman of SEBI. She was one of the directors at ICSE Bank. I was fortunate to work with her. What I learned from her is when you are making a process, you need to get into details. You cannot be peripheral. You should know what you want to do.

Anand Chandra: And she was very clear in her address, when she used to address us, that time is limited. You have to work in a limited time. So time management and understanding the customer needs is what you learn from her. When you look at other sites, there were people in the product team and all who helped us to understand how do you build processes. So at a very young age, imagine starting my career with ICC Bank and within two to four years, you get a chance to interact with the top brains in the organization. That really helped me.

Anand Chandra: to pick up their brains and so whenever you are stuck you can you know just go back and oh if he was there what he would have done so that really helped us to build some of those systems the processes even the products as to what is the need of the product how do you identify which segment you have to go which geographies you have to expand so those are the typical learnings which helped us to take Arya to place where we are

Alejandro Cremades: So, in that case, at what point? you know It was about, i mean as you were saying, about twelve over 12 years ago, where you got started with ARIA. But at what point did the idea of, especially after so long, i mean you were employed for close to nine years before you got started with ARIA, at what point does the idea of ARIA come to mind? What was that incubation you know process like? and And what was the moment where you were like, it is time to take action and to really start my own company here?

Anand Chandra: So to be honest with you, the thought of doing something popped up in somewhere in 2009-10. And there was one other company which was there. So I and my other two colleagues who are there request, Kuro Promoter, we were all in ICC Bank. So we thought of buying that company that time in 2009. But then they quoted us in several million dollars, which was not which was outside of our range to acquire.

Anand Chandra: So that idea got shelved. And then again, this idea came to us in 2012 that there’s another company called Aria Collator, which is there, which is one of ah which was one of the vendors of ICC Bank. So we said this company is ah part of a good group. But in their overall scheme of thing, it’s lying in a ludge, doing a limited kind of a business. Why not approach their promoters and give it a try? So their promoter or the chairman, Mr. Krishna Bhai Kota,

Anand Chandra: relied on us or trusted us and handed over the company with a 65% stake to us. He kept 35% with him. And there was no, I would say, apart from signing a shareholder agreement, there was no like concept of doing evaluation. It’s just that he asked how much money you guys are ready to put in.

Anand Chandra: You put in, run the company, take it. So that’s the trust he had in us. He trusted us and that helped us initially to you know scale up this to the level where we are. The idea of doing something on our own, the while banks have their own challenges in going and meeting, you know you have a lot of restrictions as a bank.

Anand Chandra: you have a lot lot of thought processes alone. But when you do something on your own, the idea was how do I go more granular? Because if you see most of the banks still are working on the tertiary markets, you need people who can go to primary and secondary market. And this is where we found our space, going more closer to the production centers.

Alejandro Cremades: Because for the people that are listening to get it, what ended up being the business model of ARIA? How do you guys make money?

Anand Chandra: So how do I make monies? I have identified that on the post harvest side, we did some analysis and we realized that if people store commodities over a period of time and multiple a bouquet of commodities, because the price appreciation in the off season, they will make money. no The challenge is, this is a concept which is good on paper, but how do you make it you know workable in the field?

Anand Chandra: So, when you go granular and you go to more deeper side of markets, more closer to the farmlands, you need to work out a model as to how how you ah stay viable in small warehouses where the tonnage will be less, the funding amounts will be less. So, what we did is we started our business with large corporates, giving them locations which they have not heard of saying that you can procure from these commodities. So we took them to smaller lo location. Say for example Bihar is one state where we are the largest today. When we started we did not have much of a competition in those states. People were scared to do business there or people were not ready to explore. So we went deep. We

Anand Chandra: bought in a lot of corporates. When we bought in a lot of corporates, it helped us to create visibility for us because if you are working for a large corporate, rate ah these smaller guys can trust you more. And then we built up a cluster-based model which helped us to work in smaller, smaller warehouses and work out those unit economics so that we stay profitable on the storage. Then when we realized that ah while you are doing the smaller transactions, though there it was not making a lot of sense for the banks to invest though or do those small kind of a transaction. That is when we in 2017 approached ah RBI and got a license and for NBFC which is a non-banking financial institution.

Anand Chandra: and That’s helped us to do lending, do small ticket size. And then when we went a bit, we thought as we are going, there’s another problem which we have to solve, which is the access to market. So typically, the overall vision is solving two basic problems for the farmers or the or farmer producer so organization. The freedom to but number one is freedom.

Anand Chandra: when to sell and second is whom to sell. So to when to sell you need a storage space to store and when you need is when you store you need finance also because your working capital gets bought. So farmer may need the money for their consumption needs So that’s where the finance and storage solves when to sell. And whom to sell is solved when I connect these people or the corporates with the the depositors for selling their produce, giving them an access to a large number of buyers where they can negotiate a better price. So this is where I gave them a freedom of whom to sell. Earlier they were restricted of selling into the same set of adatyas or the traders who were located in the Mandir.

Alejandro Cremades: So you guys didn’t get started with a lot of money. And I’m sure that they, that added quite a bunch of challenges to the execution.

Anand Chandra: Yes.

Alejandro Cremades: I know that especially when you don’t start with a lot of money, any, any step in the wrong direction could be lethal. So how was that day for you guys?

Anand Chandra: To be honest with you, we were saving every penny. And when we acquired this company, this company is in a local city called Mumbai. And me and my other partner Prasanna were based in Delhi. So we started commuting in train. So we came down from flight to trains.

Anand Chandra: to reduce the cost. And for almost a year plus, ah we when we used to go forward to Mumbai for 10, 15 days, we used to spend our night in the office only. We used to have a sofa combat there. And when the people leave the office, we used to spread that sofa combat, ah catch our hold of our sleep. And then before people came in in the office,

Anand Chandra: this Everything was ah you know closed and all. So the so we saved penny at every step. And when you did not have the liberty of capital with you, it helped us due to build processes which were robust from day one. I would say the processes were linear without ah i would say compromising on the risk and risk part. The other thing was tech was used from day one.

Anand Chandra: because if you don’t use tech, your manpower cost was going up. So if you see, if I today speak of Faria, I can proudly claim that we have one of the strongest tech at the back end today. Like today, I can disburse a loan to a customer in less than five minutes. So that’s the kind of processes I’m talking about.

Alejandro Cremades: What was that moment where you guys realized you were heading into something really exciting with Aria? you know That moment where you were like, wow, you know we’rere there’s a turning point.

Anand Chandra: So the day we decided to quit the bank and do something on our own, I think that day was the first step. And the day Mr. Krishnamurt Kotak agreed to hand over the company to us was, wow, there is something good awaiting for us.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us about fundraising as well, because I know that you guys have raised quite a bit of money, over $100 million in equity, and then also about $175 million in debt. How has it been to go into the motions of raising all that money?

Anand Chandra: ah It’s an interesting balance I would say in India. if Since I am from manage and my other colleague Prasanna is from IRMA, the Institute of Rural Management. Uh, what we realize is there are certain challenges in fundraise, especially in a country like India, where there’s a lot of prejudice against, uh, prejudice for people who are passing from IITs and IMS. When you are from manage and ema sometimes ah the industry does not give you that importance or relevance, but, uh, these people and the alumni are very strong and they get that audience, which was difficult for us to get initially, you know, that they, they, they dominate it.

Anand Chandra: It’s like today, in cricket terms, comparing Australia versus Zimbabwe. So we were the minnows and comparing with competing with them. So there were challenges initially. we had When we wanted to do fundraise, there were challenges. People were quite skeptical in terms of our ideas, in terms of our growth plan, what we were submitting. to they were chat ah There were apprehensions that the plan which we had given to them are will not be attained, we will not be able to, market is not big.

Anand Chandra: ah but we came through and ah we took it step by step. So we the we decided that if we have to do those numbers, we will keep doing those numbers. One thing which we never compromised is on the profit. We realized it that ah what will differentiate us and the agri-tech sector because if you see four years or three years ago before COVID ah strike in India and across the world, there were a lot of funding which was available to agri-techs and at the sector was flooded with money and right now we are going through that funding winter for last two years. People are struggling because the models have been questioned. So

Anand Chandra: So what we were thinking as a, I would say, a block or a challenge for us is now turning out as a boon. Now, if you see we raise equity in the month of June this year, USGFC has given us a guarantee for $19.3 million, dollars which will be, it’s a debt commitment from their side. One more is in pipeline for around $30 million dollars for debt from um UK-based company, which will giving a guarantee to HSBC to lend almost $30 million dollars to us.

Anand Chandra: maybe getting close in a couple of days. So, the essence essence is when you build up a profitable model, initially there were questions that you are not scaling up as like other agri-techs, but we were able to capitalize on the capital we have raised. We did not burn capital. So we were never in a cash run situation during the COVID. And our reliance on tech helped us to survive through COVID. When everybody was one moving to COVID, we were with cap we we had capital. We had the tech capability to run. And we made profit also in those years, those couple of years.

Alejandro Cremades: So what’s the difference between raising equity and and debt for you all?

Anand Chandra: see debt for us is always a better option since we have been all bankers so we always always want to leverage on the equity because you know equity cost is always on a higher side considering the dilutions which you have to do as a promoter in on the wealth creation part so we always prefer to leverage and get a better debt ah initially when we were raising debt the ROIs which were offered were on a higher side the rate of interest I’m talking about but as we grew as we attained scale we are now able to squeeze a lot of the rates which we can get. So if you ask me personally, debt is always better than equity, but then you will have to as a promoter balance it out between equity and debt rather than going full fledged to equity. So since we were bankers, so we ah maintained our financial statements, those compliances from day one, we never delayed in piling our banks, state the financial statements with the authorities.

Anand Chandra: There were no remarks because the compliances were up to my because we we had the perspective how we’ll have a lender look at the financial statements. So we ensured we follow those standards and mentor.

Anand Chandra: Debt always is is a welcome thing for us at a reasonable cost, not like as a too high cost for debt. So we had currently leveraged that before the equity raise, we were almost at ah debt to equity ratio was 3 is to 1. Now with equity coming in, so we’ll be raising more debt to take it back to 3 is to 1 leverage.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us about vision too, no? Because when you are raising money, ultimately, especially on the equity side, investors are betting on a vision. They’re betting on a future that you’re living into.

Alejandro Cremades: so And if you were to go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the vision of ARIA is fully realized, what does that world look like?

Anand Chandra: Yeah.

Anand Chandra: The world will look like RDI would be the green operating system in India to start with and then globally. So we don’t want to be a platform or a agri-tech. It has to be a green operating system where every green is digitized and gets you know moved across.

Anand Chandra: So it’s like the operating system on which a mobile works. So that that’s what we want to be in the agri-site, the operating system.

Alejandro Cremades: As part of um really going into that future, I know how important it is for you guys to really understand customer needs and how to address them. no and to and and In that journey of being able to listen to your customers, what has been your biggest takes?

Anand Chandra: See, the biggest thing is being string-grounded. We realized, if I’ll give you a classic example. We have learned a lot of things from companies, not from this sector. For example, if you look at at the largest airlines in India, today is Indigo. I don’t know whether you have heard their name or not. Indigo is the largest airline today. And they have a very mediocre customer service. But they have the largest customer base. The reason is that

Anand Chandra: they operated at a low cost focusing on profitability, but they realized that if they operate their airline ah committing to the time at which they will make you reach the destination, they will never lose customer. So if you see their processes, you know, while we used to travel,

Anand Chandra: They have used tech at each step, smaller, smaller step to ensure that they fly takeoff on time and they land on time. So they have identified the customer lead as that, the turnaround time. Same thing we have realized that on a post-harvest side, whom are we competing with? If we have to reach to the people who don’t have an access to a formal banking, I am comp competing with a local money lender.

Anand Chandra: who ah who can give, ah you know, when a farmer goes to who can open his cash box and given the money right across. So is my turnaround time faster than that? This is when will I will be more relevant.

Anand Chandra: because the farmer may not, I would say value giving 2% extra or 3% extra considering the relationship with that. So today if you see banks lend at 10% in India, my lending rate is around 13% and the unorganized sector will do at 18%.

Anand Chandra: So if you are able to give a better turnaround time, you get premium in the market. So that’s one customer need which is identified. Second customer need is, can I give them an access to a large kind of a customer who are giving or who are buying commodities at a credit. So that’s where the platform business comes in. You plug in the the bridge finance in between or are you come in as a I would say an underwriter in between where you are assuring the quality to the buyer saying that this is in my warehouse and to the farmer you are giving him an access to the entire set of customers who can buy.

Anand Chandra: So that’s the customer needs which have to be identified. What we have philosophically stated is we have not gone by perception. Say for example, today people believe in India that we have a huge post-harvest losses and people believe that ah the Indian supply chains are fragmented. Our philosophy and personally my philosophy is that the Indian supply chains are fragmented.

Anand Chandra: but they are not inefficient. In a sense that we have a large number of small and marginal farmers, and we have a huge consumer base who are price sensitive. In this context, if we operate, the Indian supply chains are highly efficient. What they lack is a transparency. That is where we came in. That I will not compete them and set up a or disrupt the market and set up a parallel channel.

Anand Chandra: i will go along with the players and make it more transparent which will help me to give an access of finance to all the participants.

Alejandro Cremades: So we’re talking too about you know the future earlier. I want to talk about the past now, but doing so with a lens of reflection. If I was to put you into a time machine, and I bring you back maybe to 2012, that moment where you were thinking about starting Aria and they’re becoming you know a founder, and let’s say I had the opportunity of putting yourself in front of that younger anend and giving that younger self one piece of advice before launching a business.

Alejandro Cremades: What would that be and why given what you know now after experiencing this journey for over 12 years?

Anand Chandra: That’s a very tricky question you are asking me. You’re testing my gray cells right now. One piece of advice is,

Anand Chandra: you um the I’m finding it difficult to answer this question, Alexandra. You’ll have to give me a minute on this.

Alejandro Cremades: so you see a lot of lessons and that you’ve learned along the way. so um If there could be just one that you think could have the biggest impact, if you were to be now embarking for the very first time with Arya, what would you tell to that younger self?

Anand Chandra: I would say ah when we started, I i was not so, i I would say I was not 100% into it.

Anand Chandra: I did my financial calculations wrong and I started with a ah the money which we poured in as capital. i Among the three guys, I put the least. I could have put in more and got more stake. Maybe something was stopping me to put in. If I can go back in time, I would i should have backed myself more on my capabilities, which I did not do that time.

Alejandro Cremades: so and And for the people that are listening that would love to reach out and say hi, what is the best way for them to do so?

Anand Chandra: reach out to me they can email me and they can you have my email ID I’ll be happy to address to the issues they have and once they

Alejandro Cremades: And then what about for what about for learning more about ARIA? What’s the best way for them to to learn more?

Anand Chandra: So best way they can reach out to us, like ah we have a PR team who can also address them in case they have specific requirements. like ah We go and address certain kind of students, and they we also encourage a lot of study tools. There were a couple of countries like Senegal and Tanzania, people who came. So we have visitors coming on this Friday from Cambodia also to understand our business model. So we can arrange those study tools and get them and more insight on what we do.

Anand Chandra: And it’s a part of the business or it’s a part of the same ecosystem. Happy to support people also if they want to replicate certain models outside India.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. well you see know well anan Thank you so much for being on the Dealmaker show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Anand Chandra: Thank you so much, Alexander. It’s a pleasure to be on your platform.

*****

If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at al*******@pa**************.com“>al*******@pa**************.com

 

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