Originally reported and written in January 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.

There is no stopping the Indian hydroponics market. In fact, a report issued in February 2021 predicted that the Indian hydroponics market is likely to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.53% between 2020 and 2027. Meanwhile, the global market is estimated to grow at 6.8%.

Driving this growth are a plethora of startups, ventures and farming/gardening enthusiasts. One such venture in the fray is Rise Hydroponics, an Ahmedabad-based agritech startup that was founded in 2020 by three entrepreneurs — Tusshar Aggarwal, Meet Patel, and Vivek Shukla. 

Rise Hydroponics provides “end-to-end soilless and hydroponics farming solutions”. It is also “involved in developing both outdoor and indoor hydroponics farm projects”. 

What do these mean? For starters, they help individuals with the time, manpower and a desire to get into the hydroponics business build an entire farm. 

Once the entire project is set up, these individuals run it while Rise Hydroponics provides them a year of agronomy and maintenance services free of cost. The startup also assists in developing marketing strategies and building the brand, and even buys a percentage of their total produce for the first few months to support their nascent business. 

Thus far, they have developed more than 40 commercial projects across India under this model.  

The startup also works with businesspersons and corporations on a joint venture basis to set up hydroponics projects. Often these entities want to get into agribusiness but don’t have the time, and thus enter into a partnership with Rise Hydroponics. Under this model, the concerned entity must come up with the land and financial investment to set up the project.

Once the land and investment is available, the startup not only develops the project, but also employs trained people to manage the farm and perform a variety of services like nutrient management, crop planning, agronomy, growing, packaging, logistics, sales and marketing. The concerned entity and the Ahmedabad-based startup share the profits of this venture.         

Finally, Rise Hydroponics is also in the business of retailing hydroponically grown vegetables through their brand called ‘Rise Freshz  – Direct from Farms’. 

They are direct vendors to retail businesses like BigBasket, Star Bazaar and Waycool, among others, besides selling to hotels, resorts, caterers, supermarkets, food product manufacturers, vegetable traders, Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Mandis and Ayurvedic companies. 

Today, the startup is working on growing more than 50 types of crops through their projects. 

“We have completed more than 40 commercial large projects in 27 different cities and developed more than 25 lakh square feet of hydroponics and soil-less farms. We have also trained more than 35,000 agriculture enthusiasts, farmers, entrepreneurs, businessmen, students, working professionals, homemakers, international students and delegates in soil-less farming,” claims Tusshar Aggarwal, director of Rise Hydroponics, in a recent conversation with The Better India. 

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