India, July 18 -- Every startup begins with a reckoning moment: a spark or a struggle. For Kshitij Thakur, it started with both.

The founder CEO of Agrograde said, "I didn't start out thinking I would build a company. I just wanted to solve a problem that felt too personal to ignore."

That problem was the quality of agricultural produce. Kshitij was working in industrial automation, where they build systems that use computer vision to identify defects on a manufacturing or assembly line. One of their clients in the food processing sector told them about the regular disputes between their procurement teams and suppliers regarding the quality of onions.

He said, "The quality standards of fresh produce are very subjective, and there were ...