From farm to table — this is the basis on which many agritech startups were built in India. The fresh produce supply chain market in India was arguably overhyped five to six years back, and more after the pandemic.

As COVID-19 lockdowns supercharged demand for online groceries and farm-to-home deliveries, consumers started to pay premiums for freshness. There were also success stories in online grocery delivery like that of Tatas-owned BigBasket, which fuelled the belief that farm-to-table startups are here to stay.

Otipy, founded by Varun Khurana and Prashant Jain, was one of the first movers in the market. It was launched in 2020 as an agritech startup operated by Crofarm.

Gurugram-based Crofarm started out with a B2B model in 2016 to improve the supply chain for fresh fruits and vegetables, and pivoted to a B2B2C model (Otipy) in 2020.

Essentially, Otipy connected end consumers to farmers through a community of resellers who handled the last-mile delivery of fresh produce. It claimed to be India’s first community group buying platform for fresh produce and daily essentials, aiming to deliver fruits and vegetables (F&V) to consumers upon procurement from farmers directly, without the involvement of any middleman.

The operation involved sourcing fresh fruits and vegetables directly from farmers and shipping them to Otipy’s warehouses. Following quality inspection and packaging, the orders were collected by local resellers who provided doorstep delivery to end-users.

However lucrative and interesting this model looked back then, it started showing cracks and the early mover Otipy failed to sustain its run. Inc42 had last month reported exclusively that the startup had shut down.

According to Otipy employees, the management has halted all communications with them. By now, the decision to shut down operations is very clear, but the employees have not received any communication on when they would get their dues.

One employee claimed CEO Varun Khuarna has stated that the dues would be cleared in “several days” without mentioning any specific day or time.

Vendors complained that the company has not cleared dues since January. “We’ve been trying to reach them, but they’re completely unresponsive now. Earlier, the management kept assuring us that once they closed their funding round, they would settle all payments — but that never happened,” one of them told us.

“It’s frustrating, we’ve provided our services in good faith, and now we’re chasing them for what’s rightfully ours,” another vendor added.

As we stand at this juncture, let’s look back at the early promise of Otipy and its fall.

Otipy’s Fresh Promise

At the time of launch in June 2020, Otipy had positioned itself as a B2B2C agritech startup, looking to transform India’s fragmented fresh produce supply chain. The platform connected farmers directly with consumers through a network of community resellers who managed the last-mile delivery. Otipy leveraged an AI-based demand forecasting system to optimise procurement, minimise wastes, and ensure faster delivery.

The venture was built on the insight that multiple stakeholders, such as farmers, sellers, resellers, and consumers, were underserved in the traditional supply chain. The company set out to build a model that could make fresh produce distribution faster, more........

© Inc42