Page 66 - Avendus Huran Flipbook 2026

Conviction to us came from the
clarity of the problem that we had set

out to solve, irrespective of the size
or existence of a category.

ADARSH SRIVASTAVA
Co-Founder and Managing Director, DeHaat

You joined the founding team early on. What made you want
Harvesting Impact Through Technology to trade a conventional career path for the uncertainty of
building an agritech platform and why did you think the
Adarsh Srivastava is Co-Founder and Managing Director timing was right in 2012?
of DeHaat, one of India’s leading agritech platforms Coming from a farmer’s family and growing up in a small
that provides end-to-end services to smallholder district in Bihar, I had seen agricultural struggles up close
farmers, including quality inputs, crop advisory, – from unreliable input quality to unpredictable weather
financial services and market linkages. He started and distress selling. Those experiences stayed with me.
DeHaat in 2012 alongside his co-founders, with the Shashank and other founding members of DeHaat, also
mission of using technology to simplify the agricultural hailing from Bihar, witnessed similar stories.
value chain and improve rural livelihoods. When we all met on various forums and discussed the
challenges, the vision immediately resonated. Even when
The company has since grown into a major AI-enabled digital adoption was rising and infrastructure was improving,
agritech business serving millions of farmers across 65% of India’s workforce was still operating without
multiple Indian states and backed by marquee global structured support. I personally believe that we were very
investors. Srivastava holds a B.Tech degree from the early in 2012 in building an integrated, full-stack platform,
Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), but we knew that farmer adoption will be a slow and time-
Dhanbad, and brings his technical and entrepreneurial consuming journey.
expertise to building scalable solutions for digital Leaving a conventional career was risky, but the chance
agriculture.
to solve a problem I had lived with all my life made the
decision instinctive and deeply personal.

64 | Uth Series 2025 • U40 Business Leaders