100Unicorns-Backed Agritech Startup Greenikk Shuts Operations
by Akshit Pushkarna · Inc42SUMMARY
- Greenikk cofounder and CEO Fariq Naushad told Inc42 that loan defaults by borrowers was one of the major reasons behind the decision to wind up operations
- Besides, the startup’s shut down was also owed to the low revenues, mounting losses and lack of investor interest to keep it afloat
- Founded in 2020 by Naushad and Previn Jacob, Greenikk was building a digital ecosystem around banana cultivation. It counted the likes of 100Unicorns, Smart Spark Ventures, Mastermind Capital Ventures' Manish Modi, among others as its backers
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Banana cultivation-focussed agritech startup Greenikk has decided to shut operations due to its failure to find product-market fit and high losses.
Greenikk cofounder and CEO Fariq Naushad told Inc42 that loan defaults by borrowers was one of the major reasons behind the decision to wind up operations.
Naushad said he believes that Geenikk could have become a low-revenue startup with limited scalability, but that was not the goal of the cofounders.
“Through our NBFC arm, we were able to extend loans worth over INR 6 Cr, which got defaulted subsequently. Although our business was expanding, we were losing equity capital in the process. Despite making a pivot later from the loan disbursal-focussed business model, we were spending more money than expected,” Naushad said.
Founded in 2020 by Naushad and Previn Jacob, Greenikk was building a digital ecosystem around banana cultivation. It aimed to solve the problems of the entire banana value chain – from farmers, processing units, and commission agents to bulk B2B buyers and fibre buyers – through its full-stack solution.
The startup ran enablement centres to provide farmers with financing, seeds, crop advisory, insurance coverage, agri inputs, weather forecast, and market connect.
Naushad said that the startup had dreams to become the DeHaat for banana cultivation. Agritech soonicorn DeHaat offers end-to-end agricultural services to farmers, including distribution of high-quality, agri-inputs, customised farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages.
However, Greenikk’s dreams failed to materialise as it couldn’t scale verticals other than its financial services arm.
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In a post on LinkedIn, other cofounder Jacob said Greenikk failed as it couldn’t find product-market fit. He said that despite building an app and establishing its position as an ecosystem facilitator, the startup was just reduced to being seen as “another vendor offering working capital”.
“Initially, we had tons of inquiries, and it looked like demand was booming. But it wasn’t real—it was created… After a few deals, they didn’t come back. The truth? They already had other sources of working capital… We even tried selling to mandis, buying at INR 38 per kg, only to sell at INR 35 per kg because traders manipulated prices. The more we dealt with them, the more we realised this was a dead end—and we stopped scaling there,” his post read.
In its bid to move away from the dependency on its financial offerings for growth, the startup pivoted in March last year and started focussing on working with artisans and farmers to build handicrafts and textiles from the waste material produced in the banana farming process.
In a statement back then, Greenikk said it had made arrangements for providing banana fibre to markets in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, besides organising training for micro-entrepreneurs across the three southern states.
However, it didn’t work out as the startup faced capital constraints in scaling up this business, Naushad said.
Greenikk raised INR 5.4 Cr (about $644K) in its pre-seed funding round led by 9Unicorn Ventures (now 100Unicorns) in 2022. It was also backed by Smart Spark Ventures, Mastermind Capital Ventures’ Manish Modi, and angel investors Saurabh Agarwal, Mayank Tiwari and Arjun Pillai.
It raised another INR 3 Cr from 100Unicorns in January 2024 and was looking to raise $5 Mn in its Series A round. However, it failed to find investors.
“Given the inherent risks associated with the agricultural sector, we found that investor appetite is limited, making it increasingly difficult to secure further funding under this model,” Naushad said.
Greenikk now plans to return 50% of the capital to investors. The funds that will be recovered from liquidation will be deployed to return the capital to its lead investor 100Unicorns. The rest of the funds to pay back angel investors will come from the founders’ pockets, Naushad said.
Greenikk had 30 employees at its peak in October 2023. It had been scaling down its employee base since then and employed eight people when it took the decision to shut operations. Naushad said that Greenikk will pay two months severance pay to these employees.