In a vegetable field outside Jaipur, a machine no bigger than a bicycle is doing work that once swallowed a full day of back-breaking manual labour. Thirty-two steel blades churn the soil between crop rows in a neat three-foot band, throwing up dark earth as the operator walks calmly behind — and the whole machine costs less than a mid-range smartphone. It is a Balwaan power weeder, and it is one of the reasons more than four lakh Indian farmers now put their trust in a Jaipur startup that set out to mechanise the farms tractors forgot.
Balwaan Krishi was founded in 2016 by brothers Rohit Bajaj and Shubham Bajaj. The idea struck Rohit at a tractor launch, where conversations with farmers revealed a gap hiding in plain sight: mechanisation was transforming Indian agriculture, but the machines were engineered for large holdings — far beyond the reach of the small and marginal farmers who cultivate most of the country’s farmland. The brothers started the company with personal funds and family borrowing, designing equipment specifically for Indian field conditions and Indian budgets.
That design philosophy runs through the whole catalogue. The BP-650 power weeder pairs a 7 HP petrol engine with a 32-blade rotor and a 3.5-foot cultivation width; the 5.5 HP diesel BP-850 sips just 800 ml of fuel an hour; the BP-700 packs seven functions into a single machine. Around them sits a full small-farm arsenal — knapsack sprayers, brush cutters, mini tillers, water pumps, reapers, seeders and chaff cutters — every product priced between Rs 10,000 and Rs 1 lakh, a deliberate ceiling that keeps mechanisation within a smallholder’s reach. The company backs the machines with spares, service and warranty across its network, and says its equipment carries ISI marking — a first for the segment.
The approach has scaled remarkably. The company says more than four lakh farmers use Balwaan equipment today, sold through 800-plus dealers across North India and a growing e-commerce presence. In September 2026, Balwaan Krishi raised Rs 100 crore in a Series B round led by First Bridge India Growth Fund Private Equity, adding to a Rs 40 crore investment from JM Financial Private Equity in 2024. The new capital is earmarked for expanding domestic manufacturing — tightening control over quality and supply chains while cutting dependence on imported machinery and components — and for developing the next generation of equipment with predictive maintenance and IoT capabilities, from battery sprayers to smarter power weeders. A Chennai logistics hub, opened in August 2026, anchors the push into South India, where the company sees the same small-farm opportunity it first spotted in Rajasthan.
Here’s the company’s own look at one of its machines — the BKS-35 knapsack power sprayer — in action:
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