Pioneering Ventures Acquires Lateral Praxis in a Move to Accelerate its Agri-Food Tech Platform Roll-Out.

• Pioneering Ventures is a food, finance and tech platform which aims to reinvent the Indian food ecosystem to provide people with healthy food in a sustainable manner
• Lateral Praxis is helping public and private sector clients to streamline their operations with the aim to promote good and sustainable food production and supply chain  practices
• The move is aimed at strengthening the reach of technology-based solutions in the Indian food supply chain .
• This acquisition is an important and far-reaching strategic addition to the portfolio of the Swiss-Indian agricultural and food platform Pioneering Ventures

MUMBAI/ZURICH, May 25, 2020: Pioneering Ventures announced newly closed acquisition of Indian agri-tech company Lateral Praxis today. The move is aimed at enhancing downstream reach of tech-enabled solutions for the food supply chain  including information access, apps, data analytics and risk mitigation. The acquisition recognizes significant shifts in the Indian food system  in recent years which bring forward an immence potential for using technology and data to improve operational efficiencies and quality in daily supply chain activities. The systematic generation of data intelligence also allows to create valuable services and improve decision making of all parties in the food ecosystem.

Founded in 1999 by agri-tech stalwart Suniti Gupta, Lateral Praxis has worked closely with central and state governments, ministries and departments, along with farmer communities at village/panchayat level to build, configure and implement knowledge-based systems. The Mumbai-based company currently works with a strong core team to deliver solutions for online payment platforms, information aggregation and data mining for a varied customer base.

Speaking about this development, Dr. Pablo Erat, co-founder of Pioneering Ventures, said: “End-to-end supply chain digitization has been a core pillar of our strategy. We have been working successfully with Lateral Praxis for many years and I am confident that the team will further boost our technology and data expertise. The acquisition is an important milestone in the implementation of our strategy  to accelerate the development of our fully integrated food technology platform and help us drive large-scale transformation across the food ecosystem through data intelligence-based services.”

Elaborating on this development, Suniti Gupta, Founder-CEO of Lateral Praxis and a known agri-tech expert in India said: “As Indian agriculture and food sector gets ready to embrace next generation, tech-enabled future, the time is ripe for positive disruption. Our experience and core competencies will be augmented well by Pioneering Ventures’ expertise and presence across the food supply chain, helping us jointly scale up our solutions and delivery. We look forward to joining the PV family.”

About Lateral Praxis

Lateral Praxis aims to create value in our customers’ business. We regularly invest in integrating newer technologies into solutions that we provide for our customers. We architect, configure and implement our solutions and ensure long term success through specialized user training. What drives our systems is an understanding of the knowledge behind the framework. We provide elegant, field-proven software. We have a suite of products that go the “last mile” in agriculture, legal compliance, audit tracking and risk management.

Know more about us.

About Pioneering Ventures

Pioneering Ventures is a food, finance and technology platform company based in Switzerland and India. Our mission is to reinvent the Indian food ecosystem to provide people with healthy food in a sustainable manner. We strive to generate superior financial and social returns for all our stakeholders through knowledge and data-driven transformation from farm to fork. This is done by re-engineering the way food is produced and supplied and empowering and connecting all partners in the ecosystem.

• Strong portfolio of five tech-enabled growth businesses and two pilot ventures
• Daily production of 450 tons of healthy food that reaches over 1.5 million consumers
• 15,000 farmer families engaged
• 120+ Collection and distribution centers across India and the Middle East
• Best-in-class corporate governance and strategic leadership
• Operational team of 400+ employees; 30+ people strong tech and data team
• Sales of $ 65 million in FY 19-20; 4-year CAGR of 117%

Our Portfolio

As a result of more than a decade of entrepreneurial activity in India, Pioneering Ventures has built a portfolio of strategically and operationally interlinked food, technology and financial service businesses.

• FarmLink – Indiaʼs supply chain champion for vegetables and commodities
• Citrus Processing  India  – India‘s first and largest citrus concentrate producer
• MilkLane – India’s highest quality dairy producer with Swiss standards
• Desai Fruits Venture – India’s first and largest branded fruit company
• Samaaru – a farmer-centric agri-finance and value chain services platform
• DistriCo – an integrated last-mile distribution platform

Media Contact

India – Sharvari Abhyankar – Sharvari.abhyankar@pioneering-ventures.com / +91 99675.92928

Switzerland – Marcus Balogh – Marcus.Balogh@farner.ch / +41 44 266 67 85

Addresses

India
1202, Tower 3 Indiabulls Finance Centre,

Senapati Bapat Marg,

Babasaheb Ambedkar Nagar, Lower Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400012
+91 22 4540 4100

Switzerland

Pioneering Ventures AG Bellerivestrasse 245

8008 Zürich Switzerland
+41 44 508 05 35

pioneering-ventures.com