A new report by consulting firm Beanstalk AgTech and market intelligence company Briter, supported by Rabo Foundation, International Finance Corporation, FMO and Omnivore, highlights a widening gap between agritech’s economic potential and current investment momentum across thirteen countries in South and Southeast Asia (excluding India).
While agritech adoption could generate more than USD 90 billion in additional annual GDP by 2033, investment across the region fell by nearly 70% between 2022 and 2025, reflecting investor uncertainty about which business models can scale sustainably despite continued demand for digital agriculture solutions.
The report finds that many early agritech ventures continue to face logistics complexity, thin margins and limited expansion opportunities across fragmented smallholder systems. It also identifies the main constraint at the Seed-to-Series A transition, where fewer companies progress to later funding rounds. Development finance institutions are therefore expected to remain central to early-stage market formation, with blended finance combining equity, credit and concessional capital continuing to underpin agritech investment.
The innovation gradient across regional ecosystems
Source: Beanstalk AgTech, Briter
Another key finding concerns the difficulty of regional scale-up. While in Africa commonalities in language, donor ecosystems and agricultural market structures are enabling a growing number of agritechs to expand across borders, South and Southeast Asia remain highly fragmented. Differences in policy regimes, value-chain structures and farm organisation mean that approaches successful in markets such as Vietnam or Indonesia often require substantial redesign before entering neighbouring countries. Scaling depends primarily on a high degree of country-specific adaptation rather than regional rollout strategies.
In terms of emerging opportunity areas, the report finds that investment is increasingly concentrating on traceability-driven digital value chains, embedded agricultural finance linked to procurement systems, and aquaculture.