(Photo : Company website)

Bangalore-based Dairy tech startup Stellapps, on Monday said it has raised $26 million (around Rs 219 crores) combining equity and debt in a series C funding round being conducted to boost its 'mooMark' business related to contract manufacturing and private labelling of high-quality value-added dairy products.

The last stage fundraising event of the firm drew attention from both existing and new investors across the world. The existing investors who participated in the series C funding round include Mumbai's Blume Ventures and Omnivore, Washington's Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Netherlands' IDH Farmfit Fund, California's 500 Startups and Singapore's Blue Ashva Capital. The company listed Miledeep Capital, a firm based in Mumbai, as its new investor.

During the series C funding round, Stellapps received debt funding from U.S. Government's development finance institution- US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

Celesta Capital, Nutreco, Qualcomm Ventures, ABB Technology Ventures, Venture Highway, Binny Bansal, and BEENEXT are some of the other investors of the startup.

Through the late-stage funding round, 'mooMark' has strengthened its position as a leader in sustainable and traceable dairy nutrition, the company said.

"We are excited to receive continued commitment from our existing investors and welcome aboard new investors as part of our Series C round," CEO of Stellapps, Ranjith Mukundan, said in a statement. "This capital will help 'mooMark' scale its value-added dairy product offering to its customers across India in a sustainable manner and strengthen its export segment going forward," he added later.

Meanwhile, investors said that they were happy to invest in a 'quality dairy' like Stellapps.

"Stellapps to us stands for traceability and quality dairy," Vikram Gawande, Lead -- Growth Investments, Blume Ventures, said. "The recent funding will enable them to rapidly increase demand for their Value-Added Dairy Products (VADP), positioning them as a formidable profitable supplier in the market," he added.

Founded in 2011 by a group of IIT graduates, Stellapps is the first dairy technology solutions firm in India. Formed with an aim of digitalizing the dairy supply chain in India, it works with 3.5 million farmers across 42,000 villages and has, so far, digitalized more than 14 million liters of milk flow every day.

By using the internet of things (IoT) and data-oriented insights, it provides a wide range of services including cattle monitoring, cold chain management, milk procurement and dairy supply chain optimization.

While using a 'low-capex' and 'tech-powered approach' to deliver its products across the world, Stellapps helps to improve 'traceability and sustainability,' and reduces the carbon footprint at the farm level, thus allowing Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), Direct-to-consumer (D2C), and HoReCa (Hotel, Restaurant and Café or Catering) businesses to offer premium, unique dairy product, supporting their Net Zero goals.