Vinay Nair | Co-Founder & CEO, KhetiBuddy

1. The Founding Story

Q1. KhetiBuddy was founded in 2021 to address the problem of disconnected farm data in the agri-food supply chain. What inspired you to start the company, and how did the idea take shape?

The idea came from two different journeys that eventually came together.

I had spent years building enterprise technology through Aarialife Technologies, working with mid-sized and large businesses on SaaS platforms such as NetSuite and Zoho. My co-founder and wife, Dr. Richa, had built Aaria Biolife, a certified organic biologicals company that worked directly with farmers on crop health. We were working in the same sector but from very different perspectives.

We both encountered the same gap. Businesses were making procurement, quality and sustainability decisions based on information that often stopped at the factory gate. Details about what happened on the farm, including growing conditions, input usage, soil health and farming practices, were either unavailable or recorded in notebooks and disconnected spreadsheets.

Richa understood the agricultural side of the problem, while I understood the enterprise technology side. KhetiBuddy emerged from the question of how these two worlds could communicate with each other.

We started building in 2021 with a straightforward goal: to structure farm-level data, connect it with business systems and make it useful for agribusinesses. This vision has evolved into our AI-native platform, Verdnt.

2. The Problem You Are Solving

Q2. Many agricultural businesses use digital systems, but farm-level data often remains scattered or manual. How does KhetiBuddy solve this problem, and why is it important for the agriculture industry?

The problem is not that agribusinesses lack data. Many already have a considerable amount of information. The challenge is that their data often stops at the point where the product leaves the farm. Information about how a crop was grown, which inputs were used, what the soil conditions were and how harvest quality varied is either not captured or recorded in formats that cannot easily connect with other systems.

This creates challenges across the supply chain. Procurement teams may struggle to verify quality claims at the source. Sustainability teams cannot report accurately on farming practices without reliable information. Agronomists and field teams may also lack historical data that could help them make better decisions during the next growing season.

Through Verdnt, we capture structured farm-level information covering crop activities, inputs, irrigation, weather exposure, harvest outcomes and quality metrics. We then connect this data with enterprise systems, procurement workflows, traceability requirements and sustainability reporting.

The need for this information is growing as businesses face increasing expectations around supply-chain transparency and sustainability. Buyers need verifiable information about how agricultural products are sourced and produced.

Building a reliable farm data layer is no longer just an additional feature. It is becoming an important part of the infrastructure needed to manage modern agricultural supply chains.

3. The Founders’ Journey

Q3. Your background is in enterprise technology and SaaS, while Dr. Richa brings extensive experience in agriculture and biological sciences. How have your different experiences helped you build KhetiBuddy, and what lessons have you learned as founders?

Our different backgrounds have been a strength, although they sometimes lead to longer discussions because we approach the same problem from different perspectives.

Richa spent years working directly with farmers on crop health and biological inputs through Aaria Biolife. She understands the realities of farming, including what information field teams can collect, what agronomists can realistically manage and which recommendations farmers are likely to follow.

That ground-level understanding has kept us practical. It has prevented us from building features that might look impressive on a dashboard but would not work in actual field conditions.

My experience in enterprise technology made me focus on how farm data connects with the wider business. How does it integrate with an ERP system? What does a procurement team need from a traceability platform? How can an agribusiness adopt new software without rebuilding its entire technology infrastructure? These questions shaped our platform’s architecture.

The key lesson is that these perspectives are not competing; both are necessary. Products built only around enterprise requirements may struggle with farm adoption, while products designed only for farmers may find it difficult to create value for large businesses.

Another important lesson has been understanding the pace of agriculture. Enterprise software can often be improved through frequent development cycles, but agriculture operates in seasons. You may get only one or two meaningful opportunities in a year to test and refine a solution. That requires patience and a different approach to product development.

4. Understanding the Product and Technology

Q4. Could you explain how Verdnt works in simple terms? How does it collect and connect farm-level information with the systems used by businesses?

Think of Verdnt as the connective tissue between the farm and the boardroom.

On the farm side, the platform captures structured information across the growing cycle. This includes what was planted, which inputs were applied, the weather conditions, soil readings, crop development and harvest quality.

The information can come from field teams using mobile applications, IoT sensors, satellite imagery or integrations with existing farm management tools. The important point is that we are not simply collecting data; we are creating a consistent and auditable record.

On the enterprise side, this information feeds into four connected modules:

• Farm Management: Gives agribusiness teams visibility into activities across their supply base.
  • Supply Chain: Connects harvest outcomes with procurement and logistics workflows.
  • Agri ERP: Supports operational and financial management.
  • Sustainability and DMRV: Digital Monitoring, Reporting and Verification helps turn farm-level practice data into sustainability metrics that can support reporting and certification requirements.

Our integration layer connects Verdnt with existing ERP systems, traceability platforms and compliance tools. Businesses do not have to rebuild their entire technology stack to use our platform.

At the AI layer, we use models for yield forecasting, disease-risk alerts, quality prediction and anomaly detection. These models are designed around agricultural data and calibrated for specific crop and regional contexts rather than being general-purpose AI tools.

5. Business Model and Target Customers

Q5. Who are your primary customers, and how does KhetiBuddy create value for them? Could you also explain your business model?

Our primary customers are mid-sized and large agribusinesses. These include agricultural input companies managing farmer networks, food and beverage companies tracking their supply bases, commodity traders requiring traceability for export compliance, plantation companies managing large areas and agritech platforms that want to integrate our intelligence layer into their products.

The value we create depends on the customer’s needs, but the underlying objective is the same: enabling decisions based on actual farm-level information rather than estimates.

For procurement teams, this can mean better visibility into quality at the source. For sustainability teams, it supports more reliable reporting. For agronomy teams, it helps deliver consistent guidance at scale instead of depending entirely on individual field staff.

Our business model is subscription-based. Licensing depends on factors such as the acreage under management, the number of enterprise users and the modules deployed.

We also have a white-label channel through which agritech platforms and agribusinesses can deploy our technology under their own brands. This is an important part of our international growth strategy because it allows us to enter new markets through partners that already have customer relationships and a presence on the ground.

We have remained disciplined about growth. Our focus is on customers where we can demonstrate measurable outcomes and build long-term trust.

6. Traction and Key Achievements

Q6. KhetiBuddy has digitised more than 250,000 acres of farmland. What does this achievement tell you about the platform’s adoption and impact?

Digitising more than 250,000 acres across over 35 enterprise customers globally is a meaningful milestone, but it is important to understand what it represents.

It shows that enterprises are willing to adopt structured farm data collection, which requires changes to their existing operations. It also demonstrates that the platform can be used in real field conditions by agronomists and supply-chain teams, and that our integration approach is working.

However, this does not mean the problem has been solved. We are still in the early stages of building farm data infrastructure at the scale the industry needs.

Every new deployment teaches us something about differences in data collection across crops and regions, which AI outputs influence field decisions and where integration challenges arise.

We have seen better input efficiency when agronomists can use structured historical information, faster identification of quality issues when harvest data is connected with growing conditions, and reduced effort in sustainability and compliance reporting.

One early deployment with a large winery used farm data not only for operational management but also to develop a quality-based farmer incentive system. Measurable growing practices were linked directly to what growers were paid.

That kind of application, where data can influence economic relationships across the supply chain, demonstrates the longer-term potential of the platform.

7. Innovation and Differentiation

Q7. What makes Verdnt different from other agricultural technology platforms and traditional farm management systems?

Most farm management software is designed to help farmers manage their own farms. Verdnt has a different focus: helping agribusinesses manage activities across farms they may not own but depend on for their supply chains.

This distinction influences how we build the product. A farmer-first platform may focus on making individual field recording easier. An agribusiness-focused platform must also support data aggregation, standardisation, audit readiness and integration with enterprise systems.

Our second differentiator is the connected system we have built across farm management, supply chain, ERP and sustainability. Many platforms specialise in one area, leaving businesses to manage several disconnected tools. We have made the connections between these functions a central part of the product.

Third, our sustainability and DMRV approach is framework-agnostic. We are not restricted to a single carbon standard or certification framework. Our data collection and reporting can be adapted to the framework a customer requires.

Ultimately, our biggest advantage is the combination of enterprise-grade data architecture and practical agricultural expertise. Building a product that works for both business systems and real farming conditions requires an understanding of both worlds.

8. Challenges and Lessons Learned

Q8. What were the biggest challenges you faced while building and scaling KhetiBuddy, particularly in connecting farm operations with enterprise systems?

The first and most persistent challenge was data quality. Farm data varies across crops, regions, connectivity conditions and the capabilities of field teams. Producing structured, usable information across all these variations is difficult.

We learned early that a data model cannot be designed entirely in a boardroom. You have to visit the field, understand how information is actually collected and build for real conditions rather than an ideal scenario.

The second challenge was enterprise adoption. Agribusinesses are not necessarily slow to adopt technology because they are unfamiliar with it. They often have complex systems, established processes and operational risks that cannot be disrupted easily.

We went through several iterations of our integration approach before understanding what it truly means for a new platform to work with an existing enterprise system.

The third challenge was securing our first enterprise deal. We faced many rejections before signing our first major customer. Agribusinesses make decisions based on proof and relationships, not just presentations.

Our first significant winery customer started with a smaller pilot. We refined the platform using their feedback and gradually built the trust needed for a larger commitment.

The biggest lesson is that agriculture rewards patience. Companies working in this sector must learn at the pace the industry operates rather than expecting the industry to move at startup speed.

9. Funding and Building the Business

Q9. How did you fund KhetiBuddy in its early days, and how have you approached growth and resource management?

We have been largely bootstrapped, which has been a constraint but has also encouraged discipline.

In the early days, we used revenue from my enterprise technology work and Richa’s biologicals business to support product development.

We later received external capital from a family office that had known our work for some time and believed in the direction we were taking. What mattered about that relationship was not just the funding but also the continuity. They supported us through changes in strategy and periods when the path forward was not entirely clear.

We chose not to raise aggressively, hire rapidly and build for a market before customer needs were properly established. Instead, we focused on creating value for customers and developing the product at a sustainable pace.

This approach may have resulted in slower growth than some other businesses, but it has helped us build genuine enterprise relationships and operational depth.

When resources are limited, you have to be clear about what matters most. That discipline has improved our product decisions, customer selection and understanding of where our time and capabilities create the greatest value.

10. Expansion into Global Markets

Q10. KhetiBuddy is expanding beyond India into North America and Europe. What opportunities are you seeing in these markets?

The regulatory environment in North America and Europe is increasing the need for reliable farm-level information.

Developments such as the EU Deforestation Regulation, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the US FDA’s FSMA 204 traceability requirements are pushing businesses to pay greater attention to supply-chain documentation and traceability. The specific requirements and timelines vary, but the overall direction is towards stronger data and verification.

Large food companies, commodity traders and certification bodies need structured, auditable farm data at scale. However, many of their suppliers operate in developing agricultural markets, where building this data infrastructure from scratch can be difficult.

That is where we see an opportunity for Verdnt.

India has been an excellent environment in which to develop our platform. Its diverse agro-climatic conditions, 22 scheduled languages and fragmented smallholder farming landscape have forced us to solve complex problems.

Our international expansion combines direct enterprise relationships with a white-label model. We are active in North America, working with enterprises focused on Canadian and US supply chains, and in Europe, particularly in sustainability and traceability-related use cases.

Africa is another significant opportunity because agricultural businesses there are also facing growing expectations around exports, traceability and sustainability.

The experience of working with international standards also strengthens how we approach data governance and verification in our Indian deployments.

11. The Future of AgriTech

Q11. How do you see technology changing agriculture and global food supply chains over the next five years? What are KhetiBuddy’s key priorities?

I believe the next five years will see farm data become a much more important business asset.

Today, a large amount of information generated on farms is never captured in a structured format or connected to systems that can use it. As climate volatility increases, regulations become more demanding and sustainability commitments face greater scrutiny, this will begin to change.

Businesses that build reliable data infrastructure early will have a competitive advantage. Those that do not may face increasing commercial and compliance pressure.

AI will continue to improve on-farm decision support through applications such as yield forecasting, disease-risk prediction and harvest-quality assessment. But an equally important shift will be the use of AI by procurement and sustainability teams to make decisions based on actual farm data rather than estimates.

That requires a reliable data foundation. You cannot build effective models on information that is missing or unreliable.

For KhetiBuddy, our priorities are to deepen the Verdnt platform in markets where we are already active, strengthen our white-label channel for international growth and develop AI capabilities that help enterprises make better decisions.

We are also investing in our DMRV and sustainability reporting capabilities as regulatory pressure in this area increases.

We are particularly interested in large-scale plantation and commodity supply chains in Africa and Southeast Asia. Export-market traceability and sustainability requirements are creating a growing need for better data infrastructure in these regions.

12. Advice for Aspiring Founders

Q12. Based on your experience of building KhetiBuddy, what advice would you give entrepreneurs who want to solve real-world problems through technology, especially in agriculture and other traditional industries?

Start with the problem, not the technology. In agritech, founders can sometimes become too focused on capabilities such as AI, IoT or satellite imagery and then look for a problem to solve. The strongest businesses begin with a clear understanding of the industry’s real challenges and then identify how technology can address them.

Be realistic about timelines. Agriculture operates in seasons, and traditional industries often take time to build trust. If your product requires changes to how a farmer manages a crop or how an enterprise runs its supply chain, the feedback cycle will be slower than a typical software development sprint. Plan your resources and expectations accordingly.

Work with people who understand the ground reality. Some of the most valuable people in our journey have been those who have actually worked with farmers, managed supply chains or experienced the industry’s operational constraints. That knowledge is difficult to gain from market research alone.

Build for value creation, not valuation. In agriculture, customers may have already heard many technology pitches and can be sceptical of broad promises. What matters is demonstrating measurable outcomes and building something that genuinely works. Recognition and valuation should follow from creating real value, not come before it.

Finally, hold on to your conviction. The first deal may take longer than expected, and the early years can be difficult. What keeps you moving forward is a genuine belief that the problem matters and that your approach can solve it. Choose early customers and partners who share that belief, and build trust through results.

Interview By: Palak Pandey