Growpital Review – Invest in Farming

Growpital Review

Growpital is the newest entry in the world of alternative investment which provides exposure to crops. The platform boasts a yield of 12-18%. Investing in farming can seem like a good strategic move. After all, whether the economy is in a recession or booming, people will still have to eat. In this Growpital review, let us explore the platform in detail.

Thus agriculture and farming investments as being recession-proof. Since farmland is uncorrelated with most other major asset classes, it has proven to perform well during challenging economic conditions.

Institutional investors like university endowments and pension plans have long known about the benefits of investing in agriculture. These investors have historically kept around 10% of their portfolio in natural resources. And for good reason!

Farmland Returns

Farmland returns have consistently outperformed stock market returns for decades. Since 1990, farmland returns have averaged out to 11.5% yearly while the S&P 500 averaged only 11.1%.

At the same time, farmland experienced nearly a third of the volatility of the stock market. This has made farmland a desirable investment for many people looking to add diversification to their portfolios.

Use Code GROWRDIMES

What is Growpital?

Growpital Farm

​​​​Growpital is a platform that provides investment opportunities in agriculture projects that generate the highest possible returns while mitigating the risks by strategically diversifying crop plantations and practicing different types of farming. The platform has now around 60 Acres of land under management. They received a grant of INR 18 Lakhs from RKVY, Raftaar Programme of the Government of India, and are also National Level Award winners for growing strawberries in the summers of Rajasthan without soil (hydroponics)

Use Code GROWRDIMES

Growpital Business Model

Growpital takes care of complete property management, which includes finding the right crop, identifying farmers, and all other operational processes from growing to selling the crop.

The operational mechanism of Growpital is as below

  • Growpital is a platform where different project entities, in the agriculture domain, list their ownership fractions in the form of LLP Capital Contributions. 
  • The entities are registered as LLPs only. This is done for passing on the tax benefits to investors.
  • For the purpose of collecting the amount, the project entities have prepared an Escrow Agreement with Growpital (Farm Silo Tech LLP) and also have an MoU in place for the same. As an investor/user when someone invests through Growpital, he/she will become a partner and lender to these LLPs (as selected by them) and represent their investment. Their partnership stake in the LLP will represent the amount of investment (Capital Contribution and Loan) made by them. 
  • Growpital and the designated partners of these LLPs would be responsible for the management of these Project Entities on behalf of investors/users. 
  • Growpital charges a commission from these Project Entities for providing with them the platform. 
  • The Escrow Agreement ensures that the user gets the partnership in the project entity when the amount gets transferred to a particular entity and also ensures the distribution of profits, repayment of loan,s and other payouts given by the Project Entities to the partners.

Risks in Investing with Growpital

Like all investment options, there are risks associated with investing your money in Growpital. The risks can broadly be divided into 2 segments- platform risk and product risk.

Platform Risks

  • New age concept: Being a new age concept, these type of platforms & investments are not tried and tested like FDs, mutual funds, stocks, etc. We’ll have to give them time to understand ups and downs faced by them.
  • Non regulated investment option: This is not a regulated by SEBI or RBI or any such regulator. They are operated through an LLP which needs to be audited by a qualified CA- just like any other LLP under the sky.
  • Lack of transparency: While the team does update about things happening at their farms via updates & images in Telegram group, emails, there is still a lot of scope to share with the investors regular updates about the happenings at the farm and how their money is getting deployed.

Sector Risks

  • Market Price Volatility Risk: This refers to the potential fluctuations in crop prices due to market forces. Growpital addresses this risk through various strategies.
  • Weather Risk: Adverse weather conditions can impact crop yields and quality. Growpital has implemented several risk-mitigation measures to counter this threat.

To mitigate these risks effectively, Growpital claims to employ the following strategies:

  • Crop Diversification: Growpital diversifies its crop portfolio by cultivating multiple types of crops within a single project.
  • Segment Hedging: Different farming methods, such as open fields, protected environments (shade net, hydroponics, polyhouse), and orchards, are used to minimize the impact of adverse weather conditions.
  • Multiple Locations: By developing farm projects in various locations, Growpital spreads its risk exposure across different geographical regions.
  • Insurance: Growpital invests in crop insurance for specified crops, offering protection against weather-related losses.
  • Future Contracts: Growpital enters into contracts for select crops, such as seeds, oilseeds, food crops, and those requiring initial processing. These contracts help secure minimum returns, reducing market price volatility risk.

These proactive measures ensure that Growpital investors have a greater chance of enjoying stable and consistent returns on their investments.

Growpital Investment Options

Growpital currently has 5 different investment options listed on its website. All of them differ based on minimum investment, tenure, lockin, returns, etc. The options are listed in the chart below:

Option Name

Min Investment

Exp ROI (in %)

Tenure

Lockin Period

Payout

Baby Farming

5000 / unit

10

36 Months

12 Months

Quarterly

Planty Returns

20000 / unit

12

36 Months

12 Months

Quarterly

Soil Savings

100000 / unit

14

36 Months

12 Months

Quarterly

Leafy Eleven

11000 / unit

11

12 Months

12 Months

Monthly

Rooty Profits

1500000 / unit

15

36 Months

12 Months

Quarterly

Once can select the ideal investment option for them from the above options considering the minimum capital, expected payout frequency among other requirements.

Out of the plans available, Leafy Eleven seems to be a decent offering with low minimum investment & tenure. If you can invest higher amounts (greater then 1 Lakh), you can consider Soil Savings plan to get higher ROI but it does come with higher tenure.

growpital deals

Use Code GROWRDIMES

Growpital Team

Growpital Team

The team is led by Rituraj Sharma and Krishna Sharma. Rituraj has been in the business of managing farms since 2017. He is also the owner of Zetta Farms. He is an MBA graduate and decided to pursue his passion for sustainable agriculture. He has seen multiple crop cycles and is aware of the nuances of farming.

Growpital Alternatives

Few P2P platforms provide unsecured loans but do not have the same model. In the farmland space, it is one of a kind product. Platforms like Grip Invest, Jiraaf, and Pyse offer similar post-tax yields but they have different underlying assets.

People who are interested in higher yield can also add platforms like Klubwork to diversify into other alternative assets.

My Personal Growpital Review 

 have been investing with Growpital since the last few months. Initially, I decided to test the waters by investing a small amount. Impressed by their timely repayments as promised, I have further invested with Growpital. The returns are quite impressive & considering the fact that they are tax free, adds cherry to the cake. 

However, do note that this is not investment advice and Growpital investments still form a small part of my overall portfolio and networth. Do consider proper asset allocation and probable risks before you invest.

Growpital Review

In the USA there are many farmland-based investment products but this is the first of a kind in India. If the execution is done well this can be an excellent asset that has a very low correlation with other investments. As a part of the Growpital review, I have some money to test the model. I will update the platform performance in my monthly review. If the performance is good I will increase the investment amount. Check out our monthly review 

 

Frequently Asked Questions about Growpital

How are the investments structured in Growpital?

When you invest funds in Growpital, you become a partner of the LLP (Limited Liability Partnership) firm. The invested amount is regarded as capital contribution and a debt to the LLP. The ownership of assets, such as farm projects, is held collectively by the LLP, with all partners in the LLP recognized as legal co-owners.

What are Growpital investment reviews by customers?

I have shared my personal opinion previously in the article above. I have invested with them personally and have been getting repayments on time as promised. A quick look online on Google Reviews, YouTube videos and elsewhere also shows investors showering praises & have good experience with the company.

Are the returns from Growpital investments tax free?

The income generated by the LLP is categorized as agricultural income and is consequently exempted from taxation under Section 10(1) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, in India. Hence there are no tax deductions on the returns given since it is the share of profit given by the farming LLP entity to its partners. 

 

21 thoughts on “Growpital Review – Invest in Farming”

  1. Hi,

    Firstly thanks for putting out such useful info in Alternative investments. Makes investing in such options very easy. Have followed your posts since sometime and made some good investments.
    Coming to Growpital, they claim that income generated from their investments is tax free. I’m not somehow convinced with this. I’ve even read the Indian taxation laws and tried to understand but I’m not convinced. Can you please share your thoughts on this.
    Thanks.

    Reply
  2. Thanks for this article. Please let us know your experience with Growpotal. That will help people to make their investment decision.

    Reply
    • Sure Murthy Will do a video and blog posts soon in a few weeks to cover my experience!

      Reply
    • HI Shashi,
      Till now performance has been as per expectation based on the 10 months of history I have invested with them!

      Reply
    • I think it may be like Golden Forest India limited, City limozine, Bikeboat and many other likewise.
      How, we can trust Gropital?

      Reply
      • This is a great question. To date I have deployed some capital based on
        1) Conversation with founders, AMA sessions, farm visit by a few readers
        2) Legal structure like SPV which can be checked on MCA, globally tried model offering such yield

        The biggest risk in such platforms is corporate governance which the platform plans to reduce by getting independent audits done periodically and showing its balance sheet. Based on this I will decide to increase my capital allocation to the platform

        Reply
  3. Hi, here for an updated. The principal you put, and is it withdraw-able?

    Reply
  4. Hi, Can you share your experience till date. Which product did you choose out of the above listed?

    Reply
    • Hi Invested in multiple INR 2 Lakh and INR 20k product. Will consider INR 10 Lakh product after monitoring the performance for few more months

      Reply
  5. Hi,
    Before investing did you find out what is the role of the founder Rituraj in this? He is not a designated partner on paper and he is director of many other agricultural companies. So, what is he doing with Growpital? What is his benefit? Is he also a partner like you? Plus have you also seen the paperwork and what is your view on the insolvency?
    The two designated partners are also at the same time directors of many other agricultural businesses.
    I am just a little sceptical as things can go haywire anytime and we will be left with only a paper as our investment is treated as interest free loan as per schedule III.

    Reply
    • Hi Geeta,
      As per MCA filing, Rituraj is the director of Yotta Agro Farms which is the parent company of Zetta Farms and Growpital and investors are part of LLP in Growpital.
      I have seen their filing docs and financials but I understand your concern and am in agreement that in companies like these corporate governance is the most important aspect to evaluate.

      They are planning to have a 3 rd party trustee validate their numbers. I plan to scale up my investment once they have such measures in place which can give comfort to investors like us.

      Reply
  6. Do you know about the platform FAAB Invest?
    It is same kind of platform and offering nearly 22 percent of IRR but has no online presence. Not much info about them is available at their own site and nor at their social media handles also. Can we trust the platform as they are registered under Ministry of Corporate Affairs ?
    How do you check the authenticity of such new platforms and risk involved. Please elaborate in detail ?

    Reply
    • Hi Piyush,
      I know about this platform. I felt it was really small at the moment hence kept it in watch list for the time being. Will only start investing once they have a larger scale of operation .

      All companies are suppose to be registered on MCA hence that does not ensure that everything is genuine.

      Reply
  7. Hi,
    Looks like the numbers have changed somewhat. The max return is now 15%, and the price of that is 15L (https://www.growpital.com/home#calci). May be there has been some re-calibration based on recent yields etc.
    This is how I am seeing this: for 1L plans, you get 14% p.a. Simple Interest, which is around 12.4% p.a. CI. Comparing with an equivalent MF that can defer tax till, say, retirement, I am not seeing this as a great investment option. Am I missing something?
    Regards.

    Reply
    • Hi Sam,
      The yields have gone down ,mostly because of more capital chasing same deals. The product offers quarterly payouts which means 14% interest is approx 15% IRR annualized not lower than 14%.

      Mutual funds are not directly comparable because they are more market linked and overall volatility can be high. I am sure people who choose this already have equity exposure and want to lower overall portfolio volatilty.

      I think biggest risk is how the platform manages scale and offcourse corporate governance.

      Reply
      • Thanks, I did miss out the quarterly payout bit. Considering quarterly payout, and assuming that the payouts also receive the same return of 14% over the rest of the investment horizon (which is a bit questionable, unless we are able to invest in the same scheme immediately etc), the equivalent annual rate is 17% – which is quite good. Agree also, that you do not necessarily have to time entry and exit in this case as the volatility is low.

        Appreciate your informative posts on this and other alternative investment topics – great work!

        Reply

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