US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), America’s development bank that invests in projects that create jobs in emerging markets, announced that it has committed a $10 million loan to Milk Mantra, a new-age dairy food startup in India, according to YourStory report.
Commenting on the investment, Ajay Rao, Director of DFC’s Social Enterprise Finance Team, said, “We have been very impressed by the Milk Mantra team and its efforts to build a socially responsible business that empowers smallholder farmers while strengthening food security.”
DFC has also approved technical assistance amounting to $371,000 to support the company’s agriculture extension services and ethical milk sourcing programme. According to a statement released by the company, the main focus of this would be to build Milk Mantra’s digital financial services platform for its network of farmers. The platform will aim at financial inclusion of farmers, especially women farmers. The statement further added that there are nearly 100 million dairy farmers in India with a significant proportion being women.
Founded in 2009 by Srikumar Misra, Milk Mantra aims to solve the problem of trust deficit between consumers and food in the large $50 billion dairy industry in India. Over the last eight years, the startup said it has sustainably impacted over 60,000 farmer families, helping them increase productivity by 31 percent, and incomes by 70 percent.
Srikumar Misra, Founder, Milk Mantra said, “We have developed an ethical sourcing model that looks to revitalise rural economies, increase farmers’ yields, and provide farmers, their families, and their communities with growth opportunities while we scale up a mass-premium food brand that’s nourishing the lives of consumer families.”
“In these challenging times, when debt liquidity in India is almost at a freeze, for a premium food consumer startup like Milk Mantra to raise a substantial debt in the form of external commercial borrowing is noteworthy. This leverage will in fact enable the company to raise large amounts of equity capital to fund its inorganic growth plans further down the line,” added Srikumar.
Milk Mantra also has other marquee equity investors like Eight Roads (Fidelity), Aavishkaar, and Neev Fund.
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