Bertelsmann sees rural India as its next big investment frontier

Mint.For the early growth-stage corporate venture fund, there is a distinction between what venture capital like to call Bharat and rural India. While the term is all-encompassing, it doesn’t account for the fundamental issues facing rural India.

“The problem statement in villages isn't to outbid competitors through marketing. It's creating distribution and investing in infrastructure," said Makkar.Rural India as a market remains largely untapped, driven primarily by a lack of infrastructure and low transaction values.

There have, however, been some successes in the form of business-to-business (B2B) players such as Ninjacart, a supply chain platform connecting farmers to retailers; Peak XV-backed full stack agri-tech platform DeHaat; and grain storage startup Arya.ag, which raised $80 million in a Series D round led by GEF Capital Partners in January this year.Currently, BII has three investments in the segment: AgroStar, CureBay and Rozana. Recently, BII doubled down on its investment in Rozana, leading the startup's ₹290 crore (approximately $32 million) Series B round, which saw participation from Fireside Ventures, Spark Growth Ventures, FE Securities, the Bikaji family office and a few other family offices.

Rozana had previously raised $22.5 million in its Series A round led by BII in 2024.Prior to the Rozana investment, the Indian venturearm of Bertelsmann led AgroStar's $27 million Series C round in 2019 and has since participated in the company's subsequent funding rounds, including its December 2025 $30 million Series E round. The corporate venture fund also led health-tech startup Curebay's $21 million Series B in May last year.Rural India accounts for 60-65% of the country's 1.4 billion people, or roughly 900