In 2010, after a career dedicated to the technology sector in the US, Shashi Kumar forsook the conventional path. A wild field to put down roots: India. His company Akshaykalp Organic, which he co-founded in 2010, announced a turnover of Rs 5,560 crore in the financial year 2025-2026. This is equivalent to approximately 52.2 million euros.
A successful “homecoming” had family complications: Kumar grew up in a farming family in Tiptur, Karnataka, and his father wanted him to study to find a job outside the farm. According to Kumar himself, they stopped talking for eight years.
Kumar He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from Bangalore and Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago And, according to his company bio, he was in telecommunications for about seventeen years before launching his venture, thirteen of them at Wipro Technologies. His interest in agriculture was born at university. When he visited the farmer Cherkadi Ramachandra Raowho taught him how to combine crops and sell the surplus produce of a small farm.
Thus the idea of taking up an initiative was born Help the youth realize agriculture as a profitable activity. They started off as a dairy farm and later diversified. According to his recollections on the Prime Venture Partners podcast, Several times the business was on the verge of bankruptcy.. He also said that in September 2016, after failing to find capital, his wife Shilpa contributed three million rupees from family savings and her uncle another million.
Kumar’s company, which according to the podcast earns Rs 600 million a month and works with a total of 2,800 farmers, has around 7,200 crores in annual sales If the same pace is maintained for twelve months.
Technology for organizing production
Kumar’s approach to agriculture began earlier, since, according to a biography by ATREE, an environmental research organization, Already in 2004 experiments were done with organic crops While still working full time in technology. Shilpa was in charge of the day-to-day management of the small plot in Ramnagar. Kumar co-founded Akshayakalpa in 2010 with veterinarian GNS Reddy..
His engineering knowledge found its application in the agricultural sector. Kumar said Use predictive analytics to forecast production and identify potential problems. Through subscription and e-commerce, he added, the business anticipates demand and adjusts milk purchases from farmers. As he explained, they can trace every litter back to the original farm.
This company, like many others, He had to learn to sell his products. Therefore, as Kumar said in the same interview, the first nine years were a lesson; They did not understand the importance of entering the market. Lok Capital invested in the company in 2019 and exited in 2024, and its website describes how annual sales grew from Rs 290 million to Rs 3 billion during the investment period. Additionally, they explained that the business was not only focused on selling products, but brand building and customer acquisition was a fundamental pillar.
This is not the first time someone has moved from a professional career in the technical field to something different, such as animal husbandry. In another article we already told the story of Feng Yuan, who was fired from Microsoft after 22 years and devoted himself to raising geese. He also advertises system optimization services on his LinkedIn profile.
Cut to maintain the company
The financial difficulties described by Kumar in a LinkedIn post from 2016 to 2019, Restructuring required. They made some adjustments: they closed operations in two cities and suspended new employees for three years.
Kumar stopped getting salary and employees did not get salary increment. Thus, Kumar ends his story with a note about those critical years: “You can’t replicate that madness.”.
Technical management systems still exist in agricultural companies. Kumar explains the use of data and artificial intelligence, including digital tracking of thousands of animals.
Picture | Prime Venture Partners with Editing
