Ankur — Redefining Indian agriculture

01Our Story

It started with a question on a bridge

Driving back from Tahoe, the conversation turned to India — its growth, its momentum on the world stage. Then a fact that didn't fit the story: nearly half of India works in farming, yet less than a fifth of the economy comes from it. The India being left behind.

The first instinct was that farmers must be doing something wrong. The data said otherwise — the same crops yield three to four times more elsewhere. Same sun. Same soil. The numbers said what was wrong, not why. So we went to the source.

We met Ramesh. Poor, but never passive — experimenting constantly, awake before dawn, working until the light went, talking about his children's future with urgency. Ambition wasn't missing. Dedication wasn't missing. And yet the answer still was.

Ramesh wasn't failing because he didn't know how to farm. He was failing because he was farming alone.

The tools that make farming work elsewhere only pay off at scale. One farmer, one plot, one season at a time is a losing game no matter how hard it's played. The problem wasn't effort or ambition — it was a system that asks individuals to shoulder risks meant for institutions.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it. That became Ankur: bring farmers together, keep their land in their hands, and take on the complexity for them.

Why are the people who feed India the ones left furthest behind by its growth?

01

Driving back from Tahoe, the conversation turned to India — its growth, its momentum on the world stage.

02

Then a fact that didn't fit the story: nearly half of India works in farming, yet less than a fifth of the economy comes from it. The question stuck.

Why are the people who feed India the ones left furthest behind by its growth?

03

I dug into the research and talked to the experts. The same crops yield three to four times more elsewhere. Same sun. Same soil. The numbers told me what was wrong, not why.

04

So we went to the source. We met Ramesh: awake before dawn, working until the light went. Ambition wasn't missing, dedication wasn't either.

05

He wasn't failing because he didn't know how to farm. He was failing because he was farming alone, shouldering risks meant for institutions.

06

We decided to build for Ramesh. If the problem was scale and capital, then the solution had to be collective. That became Ankur.

02The Model

Pool the land Keep the ownership Run it as one

1

Pool

Farmers contribute land and retain full ownership. We aggregate fragmented plots into a large precision unit.

2

Engineer

Soil and water tests, hydrological surveys, and data-led crop selection design the farm around real constraints.

3

Operate

We run it with institutional discipline: scientific inputs, technology where it earns its place, capital for high-return horticulture, and granular tracking of cost, yield, and equipment use.

03What We Do Differently

Ankur brings the capabilities that small farms usually cannot sustain on their own

Data-led design

Crop selection and farm design are decided by soil and water tests, hydrological surveys, and market data — with contingencies and diversification built in from the start.

Operational discipline

Disciplined practices across the whole operation, every process and input tracked in painstaking detail. Run on SAP and a purpose-built farmOS, so decisions are driven by data.

Capital

Capital to shift into high-return agriculture — ensuring the right inputs, equipment, irrigation, and automation reach every farm.

Technology

Precision irrigation, IIoT, AI, and more, used extensively to sharpen decisions and lift outcomes.

04Traction

Already in the ground

0+acres

Research farm in operation — building SOPs and training staff under real field conditions.

0+acres

Commercial farms on the way — first planting from April 2026.

0+interviews

With farmers, buyers, and traders — validating assumptions in the field.

05Team

Institutional rigour, brought to the field

Arnav Mittal

Founder

M.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford and B.S.E. in Computer Science (University of Michigan). Director at Mittal Group, driving digital transformation through IIoT networks and MES systems — pairing deep technical expertise with hands-on manufacturing.

M.S. in Management Science & Engineering (Stanford) and B.S.E. in Computer Science (University of Michigan, with honors)
Director at Mittal Group, driving digital transformation through IIoT networks and MES systems — measurable gains in efficiency, quality, and decision-making
Combines deep technical expertise with hands-on manufacturing to address India's most critical structural challenges

Somnath Shikare

Chief Agriculture Officer

7+ years of international agricultural leadership across India, Nigeria, Angola, and Kenya — managing farms up to 1,000 acres. Graduate of Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, specializing in irrigation, greenhouse cultivation, post-harvest management, and livestock — with a proven record of scaling end-to-end farm operations.

7+ years of international agricultural leadership across India, Nigeria, Angola, and Kenya — farms up to 1,000 acres spanning banana, cassava, turmeric, ginger, mango, and vegetables
Graduate of Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth; specialist in irrigation systems, greenhouse cultivation, post-harvest management, and livestock integration
Proven record of building and scaling end-to-end farm operations — strengthening farmer clusters and delivering on time and on budget

Ankur is the first venture of Mittal Group Labs, a venture builder leveraging frontier technology to build for India's problems. MG Labs sits on top of the Mittal Group: a manufacturing house founded in 1907 and run across six generations, today with 500+ employees and over $130M in annual revenue, supplying precision brass products to sovereign mints and institutional customers around the world. Ankur brings that same engineering discipline — precision, control, and continuous improvement — to the farm.

06Work with us

Build with us

We're building Ankur with people who share the ambition — whether that means pooling land or partnering on agronomy and technology, buying what we grow, or joining the team in the field. However you see yourself in this, it starts with one conversation.

POOLING LAND Supply inputs & irrigation Agronomy & technology Buy produce Join the team

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