India’s leading aquaculture technology company, Aquaconnect, announced the hiring of Arpan Bhalerao as chief growth officer and Amit Salunkhe as vice president sales. The Chennai-based startup plans to strengthen its core technology and operations team further and hire 100 people by December 2020. Aquaconnect is recognized as one of the world-changing ideas 2020 by Fast Company.
Aqua-farmers adopting technology
The company has seen increased demand over FY 19-20 with aqua-farmers adopting the technology. Aquaconnect works with more than 13,000 fish and shrimp farmers and helps them with its AI-powered farm advisory solution FarmMOJO which supports farmers to monitor and track farming activities such as a change in water quality, feed intake, shrimp growth, and disease occurrence precisely. The full-stack aquaculture technology venture improves farm productivity and sustainability through AI and Satellite remote sensing technologies.
Speaking about leadership expansion, Rajamanohar Somasundaram, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aquaconnect, said, “Signing up top tech and management talents was a steep challenge for agritech startups. We witnessed the change of trend in 2019; India’s agritech, dairytech, aquatech startups attracted about US $245 million (approximately Rs 1850 crore) in investments from venture capitalists. High growth potential, unparalleled access to capital have made agritech one of the primary attractions for the top talents.”
“At such an opportune time, we welcome Arpan and Amit in our leadership team. Both leaders bring years of consumer and agritech experience to Aquaconnect. Their learning from scaling up operations in their past experiences will help us accelerate growth in India and new frontiers in Southeast Asia.”
At Aquaconnect, Arpan Bhalerao will lead the product development, partnerships, and alliances and strategic initiatives for the company. Amit Salunkhe will be heading the sales focused on banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) enterprise and govt vertical.
Arpan has worked with Urban Company as associate vice president. Arpan is a graduate from IIT Madras and completed his MBA from ISB. Amit Salunkhe has worked with CropIn and managed BFSI and West India for them. Amit comes from the background of sales with over 15 years of experience.
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Naresh Khanna – 10 February 2025
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