Nutreco, a global animal nutrition and aquaculture company based in the Netherlands, has today announced its investment in India’s dairy-tech startup Stellapps to enable farmers to increase productivity and efficiency.

Since 2019, Nutreco has made over 10 investments across Asia, Latin America, Australia, Europe and the USA, reflecting what it calls its ongoing commitment to support innovative new technologies that advance sustainability across the feed-to-farm value chain.

India is the world’s largest dairy market; approximately 570 million litres of milk is produced daily, and recent research indicates that the country’s dairy market is set to increase by a CAGR of 14.5 percent between 2021-2026. With two thirds of dairy farmers being smallholder dairy farmers (with between two and five cows), India’s dairy market has a large sustainability footprint and there is significant room for improvement.

Farmers with smaller herd sizes often face barriers when seeking to grow their businesses sustainably, including challenges such as financial support, accessing high quality products and services and expanding their customer base.

Stellapps was founded in 2011 by five technology industry veterans who believed that IoT could transform rural India. The company says its smartMoo technology solutions enhance productivity, milk quality and enable traceability. By enabling ecosystem partnerships through its online platform, Stellapps enables farmers to gain access to financial services, quality nutrition and timely veterinary care. Stellapps’ mooPay FinTech arm facilitates the financial inclusion of smallholder farmers by providing access to digital payments, banking, savings, cash withdrawal, credit and insurance.

“Our vision is to unlock unprecedented value across the dairy supply chain for all stakeholders, especially smallholder farmers. We are on a mission to shift the Indian smallholder farmers into the agripreneur orbit by enhancing productivity, improving quality and enabling traceability through our smartMoo solutions. The support of Nutreco will not only enable us to impact more farmers with our technology, it will also help us provide access to international quality cattle nutrition to farmers in India,” said Ranjith Mukundan, CEO of Stellapps.

“I am thrilled that Nutreco is investing in Stellapps, a game-changing technology for sustainable growth in the Indian dairy market,” added Nutreco CEO Fulco van Lede.

“Our purpose, Feeding the Future, drives us to invest in innovative technologies that improve the sustainability of our food supply chain. The investment in Stellapps not only supports the farming industry to feed a growing global population in a more sustainable way, but also provides better prospects for smaller farmers.”