DeHaat’s Honest Farms raises Rs 35 Cr pre-Series A round

Honest Farms, the packaged foods brand from agritech company DeHaat, has raised Rs 35 Cr in a pre-Series A round. OTP Ventures led it, with participation from Sadev Capital and Maiuni Ventures. DeHaat cofounder Adarsh J Srivastava has been appointed CEO of Honest Farms.

The brand sells more than 100 products across staples, superfoods and everyday kitchen essentials. Distribution today runs through 3,000 plus retail stores in 120 plus cities, alongside quick commerce, ecommerce and modern trade. Products are sourced directly from farmers on DeHaat’s network, and the company cites more than 230 quality checks and pesticide free certification.

The plan is larger than the current base. Honest Farms is targeting more than 10,000 retail stores in 12 to 18 months, and Rs 200 Cr in annual recurring revenue over the same period. Both of those are stated targets, not results.

Ten thousand stores is a servicing problem

Going from 3,000 plus stores to more than 10,000 means adding roughly 7,000 counters in a year and a half. That is a feet on street and servicing question long before it is a demand question. Coverage at that scale needs a distributor network that can hold the working capital, a beat plan that actually gets visited, secondary sales visibility, and someone reconciling claims every month. Miss any one of those and stores get opened once and never restocked.

If you are chasing a similar number, split the metric. Track billed outlets and repeat billed outlets separately, and report both to your board. Billed outlets rise with any launch push and a discount. Repeat billed outlets only rise when the servicing works. Set a floor, say a fixed share of outlets billed at least twice in a quarter, and hold off opening new territories until the existing ones clear it. Store counts make good headlines. Repeat billing pays salaries.