We at Kae Capital are very bullish on India to the world theme. We have already seen an increase in the global software businesses building from India. We believe to see a similar trend in global trade as well.
India is one of the largest agri-product exporters in the world. In FY22, the Indian agri exporters reached $49.6Bn, which is a 20% increase from the previous year. India is an agri commodity hub and one of the largest producers of several agri commodities like rice, sugar, and spices.
Most of the food products are traded as commodities from India with little to no value add. Major value chain margins lie with the outside processors/ buyers. There is a scope for adding value at the source to ensure better margins and value for the Indian manufacturers and sellers. The Government of India is pushing a lot to increase food exports and processing from India. The ministry of food processing industries (MoFPI) is boosting investments across the value chain of the food processing industry. Under PMKSY, GoI is making efforts to develop many mega food parks, agro-processing clusters, food processing units, and cold chain projects across the country. We believe with maturing processing infrastructure, India is at an inflection point to become a processing superpower. India’s food processing sector is one of the largest in the world and is expected to reach the output of $535 Bn by FY26.
The majority of these producers are MSMEs with a broken, unstructured and offline supply chain. Global food supply chains have a lot of intermediaries, inefficiencies and low transparency on the rates and transaction timeline. There is a need for an online platform to bring in trust and efficiencies in the value chain, which is where ONWO comes in.
ONWO is at the forefront of reimagining the food export industry using a digital-first approach in an otherwise traditional industry. ONWO’s full-stack solution will help Indian manufacturers and SMEs access the global markets in a fully managed and asset-light model. ONWO is creating a digitized global food supply chain through contract manufacturing and a structured food export segment, allowing Indian manufacturers to ship processed products to the world.
ONWO is a curated marketplace to reliably discover, transact and fulfill orders of processed food products from Indian manufacturers. ONWO offers end-to-end solutions to its customers in a full-stack digital model, involving contract manufacturing and private label solutions, quality assurance and risk management and complete order fulfillment using a cutting-edge technology platform. ONWO ensures better margins and value add for both manufacturers and buyers. The key markets serviced by them are the US, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman.
Onwo was started by second-time entrepreneur and former Flipkart executive Bipul Kumar in July 2022. We have known Bipul from his first startup and believed in his vision of transforming India’s food export value chain. Bipul has built an experienced and high-quality team. They have executed well in the last 6 months, exporting more than 10,000 MT of food products, with a high repeat rate of >90%. ONWO has covered more than 15 countries in operations.
ONWO is on a mission to build a solution for this large category. We are very excited to partner with them. It is a massive opportunity and they are a great passionate team with the right skills to build this business.