Revolutionizing Agriculture Through AI-Powered Farm Finance with Ajit Purandare, USMA ’95
Aug 17, 2025
“People have a lot of great ideas, but the market rewards execution.” – Ajit Purandare, USMA ‘95
Ajit Purandare is the Chief Revenue Officer at Croptell, a FinTech company revolutionizing agricultural finance through artificial intelligence. He brings a unique perspective to the agricultural space, having grown up in farming communities on the eastern shore of Delaware in the heart of “chicken country”.
A West Point graduate, Ajit joined Croptell after consulting with founder Scott Sartor for two years. What started as a relationship built through duck hunting in the Mississippi Delta evolved into a powerful partnership aimed at disrupting the agricultural finance space. Coming from a family that immigrated from India, Ajit understands firsthand the critical importance of agriculture and the thin margins farmers operate on.
Through data science and AI powered insights, Ajit is helping to transform how farmers access capital and manage their operations. His mission is to empower farmers to focus on what they do best while providing lenders with better tools to assess creditworthiness beyond traditional FICO scores.
In this episode of the SABM podcast, Scott chats with Ajit about:
Croptell’s Mission: Revolutionizing crop finance through AI and disrupting the traditional agricultural finance space
The Problem They’re Solving: How only 18% of farmers actually do budgets and the challenges of relationship-based lending
Platform Functionality: 5-8 minute onboarding process with AI-powered insights covering 3,000 major crop-producing counties
Target Market Strategy: Focusing on 265,000 Gen Z and millennial farmers taking over family operations through succession planning
Growth Goals: Raising capital for the next crop finance cycle and building partnerships with private equity and community banks
Timestamps:00:53 Introduction to Croptell
02:21 The Agricultural Finance Landscape
05:09 How Croptell’s Platform Works
08:30 Goals and Future Plans for Croptell
13:23 Challenges and Support Needed
16:39 Personal Connection to Agriculture
17:57 Final Thoughts and Contact InformationConnect with Ajit:
(202) 361-7674
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A special thank you to Ajit for joining me this week. Until next time!
-Scott Mackes, USNA ’01