A Hyderabad-based techie who had returned from Australia after a span of 20 years, has recently set up an agri-startup that offers modern technology such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, hydroponics and others to produce fresh and leafy vegetables free from chemicals and pesticides.

 ""I was in Australia for 20 years and was working with a lot of technologies in the agricultural space. That is where all this started and then I decided that there is so much scope in India in the farming sector," said Sachin Darbarwar, founder of the startup 'Simply Fresh.' He said that technology is quite advanced in Europe, Australia and other countries as compared to India but at the same time there is a need for affordable fresh chemical and pesticide-free vegetable produce in India.

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"With that thought process, we contemplated that why don't we give it a try? So that is how it all started," said Darbarwar. After setting up Simply Fresh in 2013 and before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic last year, Darbarwar was growing up to 150 varieties of vegetables, supplying them to a good number of supermarkets, hotels, corporates, live kitchens and others.

As many as 14 kinds of lettuce, 10 types of herbs, microgreens, peppers, capsicum and tomato are some of their produce. The startup raised nearly $20 million in funding and managed to shift to a larger parcel of land at Arjunpatla in Siddipet