When passion meets a purposeful mission, a revolutionary journey begins. Faizal Imtiaz has always been a passionate tech leader. Passionate about driving growth, innovating through technology, and with a commendable track record he gained by digitally transforming businesses in diverse financial, healthcare, and agri-tech sectors, Faizal is on a mission: ‘Connecting farming with technology for a prosperous future.’
With that mission, he rolled out agriखेती in 2022, and in mere three years not only empowered over two lakhs farmers, mapped over 51K ha of land with 19K planted farms, and made available 408 brands & 3192 products (multi brands) and portfolio of 50+ agri-input own brand products, but also delivered hundreds of services connecting lakhs of farmers with thousands of suppliers, buyers, traders, and other service providers.
Faizal could do this because he ensured that, going beyond being a company, agriखेती has become an ecosystem with innovative AI-powered technology. “Our advanced AI driven tech connects the agri-farming community and allows them to execute quick, low-cost, and hassle-free business transactions,” he shares.
The Revolution Begins: An AI-Powered agriखेती Philosophy
Faizal informs that agriculture is a source of livelihood for almost 58% of Indians, yet it only contributes to about 15% of GDP. Stakeholders related to the agriculture, i.e., Farmers, Buyers, Traders, Service providers, etc., are not able to get good returns from their hard work and investments. The problem lies in the Agri Value-Chain. It is not well integrated and results in lower revenue for all agri-stakeholders. “Our philosophy is to provide a digital platform supported by an intelligent technology for humans, which makes the whole process of agri-business smooth, responsive, and swift.”
The agriखेती ecosystem ensures that the sector is provided with:
*An Integrated Agri value-chain: All the stakeholders come together under one umbrella to create a strong community without the replacement of community members.
*Everything in one place: A single place for all the requirements of the agri-business community to save time for business transactions.
*Technology for humans: AI-powered technology backed by geospatial, computer vison and blockchain that delivers effective results to increase profitability
*Accurate advice: All the information provided is Data-driven with high accuracy, which leads to more profits
*Safe and secure: Backed by Blockchain and a PCI DSS Level 1 compliant payment solution using the highest assurance SSL certificate, which is the EV SSL (Extended Validity SSL) certificate.
The Tech Catalyst: From Capital Markets to Agritech Ecosystem
A thought leader, Faizal began his career focused on improving operational efficiencies, quickly realizing how technology could fundamentally transform critical sectors. This foundational work spanned diverse fields, from high-stakes financial (Capital Markets and NBFCs) and vital healthcare (Hospitals) to the complex agriculture (Agri-Tech) sector.
Today, as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of agriखेती, he has spearheaded the development of an AI-driven ecosystem that strategically connects all participants in the agricultural value chain, initially focusing on the Punjab State. His move into agritech was driven by the undeniable vision of the positive impact that sustainable AI-powered practices could have on marginalized agri-communities and the environment. He firmly believes that “Technology is not just a luxury; it is essential for empowering small stakeholders and creating a resilient agricultural future.” agriखेती has specifically addressed adoption barriers for marginal farmers through affordable, scalable solutions, comprehensive training and capacity building, and partnerships that subsidize technology access for the most vulnerable.
The North Star: Unlocking Potential through Psychological Safety
The most influential challenge in Faizal’s leadership journey—and the defining moment that shaped his approach—was the consistent process of developing raw talent into high-performing contributors. He recognized that significant skill gaps in teams should not be viewed as setbacks but as a powerful opportunity to build a culture of growth and development.
This experience taught him a fundamental lesson: leadership isn’t about managing people—it’s about unlocking potential. This revelation remains his “north star,” guiding how he leads today. He now prioritizes three core principles: Believing in people’s capacity to grow, fostering psychological safety for learning where mistakes are viewed as lessons, and diligently ensuring the vast organizational vision is made tangible at the individual level, giving every team member a clear role in agriखेती’s mission.
The Core Mission: Resilience, Income, and Market Linkage
agriखेती’s mission is fundamentally defined by its drive to uplift millions of farming families. Faizal ensures the platform is not just a tool but an engine that delivers AI-powered, data science-driven digital tools designed to achieve three immediate outcomes: solutions driven tools, increase income & profitability, and bring marginalized farmers into resilient, market-linked agriculture.
Starting with a focused strategy in Punjab, the platform now empowers over 220,000+ registered smallholders. This empowerment is delivered through actionable agronomy advisories, customized crop management plans, and instant market intelligence that demonstrably reduce losses and optimize input use. The design philosophy is strictly farmer-first: using local languages, ensuring low-bandwidth access, and creating simple interfaces. This focus is critical because it ensures smallholders can adopt recommended practices with confidence. Technology underpins scalability: predictive analytics and satellite- and sensor-backed insights enable hyper-local recommendations that improve yields and resource efficiency while simultaneously promoting climate resilience. By integrating last-mile market linkages and transparent pricing, agriखेती’s i actively shortens value chains and ensures higher farmer margins.
The Competitive Edge: End-to-End Solutions and Local Trust
In a fiercely competitive market, agriखेती stands out by combining a comprehensive agricultural value-chain approach with deep local integration. This creates a formidable competitive advantage.
The company offers end-to-end solutions—covering everything from quality inputs and agronomic advisory to post-harvest processing and direct market linkages. This integrated offering is essential as it reduces farmer dependency on multiple vendors and improves overall crop value. Strategically, agriखेती focuses on local integration by hiring and training local talent. This commitment is crucial as it builds essential trust, cultural alignment, and generates better field-level insights for tailored interventions. The initial focused regional strategy in Punjab leveraged existing crop patterns, networks, and market knowledge to accelerate adoption. Ultimately, by embedding sustainability through local employment and capacity building, agriखेती strengthens community relationships and enhances brand loyalty, creating a defensible, scalable model built on trust and operational excellence.
The Navigator: Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty
Faizal approaches the challenge of rapid business and economic change by synthesizing several dynamic leadership qualities. His strategy is built on four core pillars that ensure agriखेती remains adaptable and resilient.
First, he champions a combination of clarity and transparent communication, ensuring a clear, evolving vision and priorities are set so teams always know what matters now and what can shift. Second, he builds organizational agility and nimbleness by deliberately decentralizing decision-making, creating small cross-functional squads, shortening feedback loops, and running rapid build-measure-learn experiments.
Third, his focus is always on investing in people, developing resilience, cross-functional skills, and continuous learning through coaching and just-in-time training. This ensures the workforce can rapidly adapt roles and responsibilities. Fourth, he strengthens stakeholder relationships—with customers, partners, and regulators—to surface early signals and co-create solutions. Ultimately, he models calm decisiveness and psychological safety, encouraging candid discussion of risks and aligning incentives to reward speed, collaboration, and long-term value.
The Culture Crucible: Innovation, Inclusion, and Accountability
Faizal cultivates a powerful internal culture by modeling the very traits he demands: curiosity and the admission of mistakes. This foundation enables his teams to take smart risks. Innovation is fostered through running structured experiments with predefined hypotheses, small budgets, and clear success or “kill” criteria, sharing all learnings openly in demos.
Accountability is rigorously enforced through transparent ownership, utilizing tools like RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) charts, decision logs, and public dashboards. Recognition is tied directly to outcomes, collaboration, and customer impact, celebrating experiments whether they result in a “win or learn.” The organizational commitment is measured through key metrics such as pulse surveys, idea throughput, and cycle time, ensuring rituals are adjusted quarterly based on data and team feedback. This continuous monitoring ensures the system builds trust, speeds learning, and keeps everyone empowered and responsible for creating sustainable value for the farming community.
The Global Ascent: Competing on Innovation and Talent
Faizal sees a definitive shift in how Indian enterprises will position themselves globally by 2026 and beyond. The image of India as a low-cost vendor is giving way to a new identity: a source of scalable, innovation-led partners. This move up the value chain is being achieved through significant investment in R&D, productizing services, and rigorous adoption of global standards for governance and data privacy.
The growth will be concentrated in sectors where India holds core strengths, particularly cloud software (SaaS), fintech, healthcare tech, and agritech. Talent remains a crucial advantage, with a growing pool of engineers and data scientists powering cross-border product teams. Companies will execute strategic moves, including outbound M&A for market access and localized partnerships to meet cultural needs. While challenges remain in scaling governance and physical infrastructure, Faizal believes India is set to become a major source of global tech capability, competing robustly on innovation, talent, and cost-effectiveness.
Purpose as Profit Strategy: Dual KPIs for Lasting Impact
For Faizal, the balance between profitability and purpose is a false dichotomy; he insists that purpose must operate as a profit strategy, not a side project.
His approach is to anchor purpose to material issues that directly impact revenue, cost, risk, and access to capital. Each initiative is then translated into clear unit-economic impacts. agriखेती sets dual KPIs: traditional financial metrics (growth, margin, LTV) are measured alongside crucial impact metrics (accessibility, efficiency). By building purpose directly into products and customer journeys—such as features that enhance inclusion or efficiency—the company naturally expands its markets and reduces churn. This strategy ensures that inclusive, impactful solutions are also the most profitable, driving lasting business impact.
Milestones and Breakthroughs: ONDC and IoT for the Farm
Faizal highlights several recent milestones that demonstrate agriखेती’s explosive growth and technological lead. Most strategically, the company entered into a business partnership with the ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) network, integrating its platform to achieve PAN-India digital reach. This critical move makes agriखेती’s solutions accessible to farmers and buyers nationwide.
On the innovation front, the team moved into the post-harvest sector by building an in-house IoT device for real-time grain warehouse stock monitoring. This device strengthens transparency, traceability, and efficiency at the storage level by reducing significant losses. Currently, the team is developing an AI-powered integrated security system for food grain storage warehouses. In its three years of operation, agriखेती’s success in Punjab has been immense, leading to the launch of its own brand product portfolio of 50+ agri input products. This success, combined with the expansion of its white-labeled input brand portfolio, has fueled its successful entry into the Rajasthan market, confirming agriखेती as a dynamic, purpose-driven leader in the agritech revolution.
The Legacy Defined: Impact, Integrity, and Resilience
For Faizal, the ultimate measure of his leadership is not revenue, but impact—defined as the measurable, positive change created for all stakeholders. This includes tangible outcomes like increased yields, higher incomes, and job creation, coupled with vital intangible gains such as trust, resilience, and capability building within the agricultural community.
Faizal Imtiaz’s legacy is built on the aspiration to create a purpose-driven organization known for solving the real-world problems of the agri-community with unwavering integrity. He aims for agriखेती to be recognized for delivering scalable, farmer-first solutions that are both affordable and accessible.
To ensure this vision endures, he focuses on several key tenets: empowering diverse leaders from rural communities, forging durable partnerships across government, NGOs, and the private sector, and championing responsible innovation with ethical data and AI practices. This vision is operationalized through clear, measurable KPIs, user-centered design, and continuous learning from farmer feedback. His governance prioritizes ethics and long-term value over short-term gains, ensuring agriखेती’s capacity to amplify its positive impact long beyond his personal tenure.
Awards Received by agriखेती
- Best use of AI in Agriculture at the 5th Global Artificial Intelligence Summit & Awards 2025,
- Best use of AI in Agriculture at the 4th Global Artificial Intelligence Summit & Awards 2024,
- Best Emerging Startup of the Year at Startup ka Mahakumbh 2024.
- Inclusive Agri-Tech for Smallholders award at Sustainable Agriculture Summit 2024
- Technology for Sustainable Agriculture award at Sustainable Agriculture Summit 2024