The Story Behind Khetly
The Story Behind Khetly: How Two Entrepreneurs Turned Farmers Challenges into an AgriTech Vision
Every meaningful innovation begins with a real problem. For Khetly, that problem was the difficulty farmers face in accessing reliable agricultural information at the right time.
Khetly was founded with a simple but powerful vision: to make useful agricultural information more accessible to farmers through technology.
Behind this vision are two entrepreneurs, Chetan Akabari, Founder and CEO and Milan Thummar, Co-Founder of Khetly. Both come from farming families and understand that agriculture is not just a business. It is the livelihood of millions of families across India.
Their journey began with a shared understanding of farmers challenges and a determination to build something meaningful for the agricultural community.
How Did the Idea of Khetly Begin?
Chetan Akabari had grown up with a close connection to agriculture. His father is a farmer, and Chetan had also experienced farming firsthand. Over time, he recognised a recurring challenge: farmers often struggle to access timely and reliable information about crop management, pesticides, fertilizers and agricultural practices.
A farmer may invest months of hard work and significant money in growing a crop. Yet, a wrong decision about pesticide application, fertilizer use or crop protection can lead to serious losses.
Chetan wanted to find a way to make agricultural knowledge easier to access, so farmers could find useful information without having to depend entirely on scattered sources.
One particular incident strengthened this belief.
The Farmer’s Experience That Strengthened the Vision
On one occasion, a farmer contacted Chetan after spraying the same pesticide four times. Unfortunately, the farmer’s crop had dried up.
The incident left a strong impression on Chetan. He realised that timely and appropriate guidance before pesticide application might have helped the farmer avoid or reduce the damage.
It raised an important question:
What if farmers could access useful agricultural information before making critical farming decisions?
For Chetan, this was more than a business opportunity. It became a motivation to create a digital platform that could help farmers access relevant agricultural information more conveniently.
This idea became the starting point of Khetly.
From an Idea to a Shared Mission
Chetan shared his vision with Milan Thummar, who later joined him as Co-Founder of Khetly.
Milan also comes from a farming family. His father is a farmer, giving him a personal understanding of the realities of agriculture and the challenges farming families face.
Both founders recognised the importance of combining agricultural understanding with technology and business execution.
They began working together to turn the idea into a practical digital platform for farmers.
Their shared mission was clear: make useful agricultural information easier to access and build a platform around the real needs of farmers.
Meet the Founders of Khetly
Chetan Akabari - Founder and CEO
Chetan Akabari completed his Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) from Vallabh Vidyanagar and began his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 20 in the shipping and logistics industry at Mundra Port.
His early business experience helped him develop an understanding of operations, business development and entrepreneurship.
In 2023, he expanded into the agricultural sector through Okay Agri, an agricultural fertilizer import business, bringing Milan Thummar on board as a business partner.
In 2025, Chetan initiated Khetly, combining his entrepreneurial experience with his long-standing desire to contribute to the farming community.
At Khetly, he leads product vision, app design, feature planning, product development direction and long-term expansion strategy. His focus is on identifying farmers’ needs and translating them into practical digital solutions.
Milan Thummar - Co-Founder
Milan Thummar holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree and brings business knowledge and execution capabilities to Khetly.
Coming from a farming family, Milan understands the importance of making agricultural solutions accessible to farmers.
At Khetly, he focuses on farmer outreach, brand awareness, marketing and business growth. His role is to help connect the platform with the farming community and expand its reach.
While Chetan focuses on what Khetly should build and how the platform should evolve, Milan works on how Khetly can reach more farmers and build stronger connections with them.
Together, their complementary strengths support the development and growth of Khetly.
What Is Khetly and How Does It Help Farmers?
Khetly is an AgriTech platform designed to bring useful agricultural information and services together in one easy-to-use digital platform.
The Khetly Kisan Agri App currently provides several farmer focused features including:
- Crop Information: Information to help farmers understand different crops and their cultivation practices.
- Agricultural News: Updates on important developments in the agriculture sector.
- Mandi Prices: Market price information to support farmers in understanding agricultural market trends.
- Weather Updates: Weather information to help farmers plan agricultural activities.
- Government Schemes: Information about agricultural schemes and relevant updates.
- Fertilizer Guidance: Useful information related to fertilizer use and crop nutrition.
- Voice-Based Farming Advice: Agricultural information delivered through voice-based guidance.
The objective is to make agricultural information more accessible and help farmers make better-informed decisions.
Khetly aims to bring these resources together so that farmers can spend less time searching across different sources and more time focusing on their farming activities.
Khetly’s Early Journey More Than 5,000 Farmer Downloads and Registrations
Within its first three months, Khetly recorded more than 5,000 farmer downloads and registrations, marking an encouraging milestone in its early journey.
For the founders, this early response represented an opportunity to continue improving the platform and expanding its reach.
Building a useful agricultural platform requires more than launching an app. It requires understanding farmers’ needs, providing relevant information, improving the user experience and earning trust over time.
The team views this milestone as an important beginning rather than the final destination.
Their focus remains on making Khetly more useful, accessible and relevant to farmers as the platform grows.
The Thinking Behind Khetly’s Product Development
Khetly is being developed with farmers practical needs in mind.
The founders recognise that farmers require different types of information at different stages of cultivation, from crop planning and nutrient management to weather updates, pest awareness and market prices.
Chetan leads the product vision and feature planning, with a focus on building a platform that addresses these needs. Milan concentrates on reaching farmers, creating awareness and supporting the platform’s growth.
This combination of product development and farmer outreach helps keep the business focused on both usefulness and accessibility.
The long-term direction is to continue strengthening Khetly’s agricultural information services and progressively explore additional digital services that can support farmers.
The Challenges of Building an AgriTech Startup
Building an AgriTech startup comes with its own set of challenges.
Farmers have different levels of digital familiarity, different crop requirements and different regional agricultural conditions. A platform designed for farmers must therefore prioritise simplicity, accessibility and relevant information.
Building awareness is another important challenge. Farmers need to understand what the platform offers and why it may be useful to them.
For Khetly, growth is not only about increasing app downloads. It is also about encouraging farmers to use the platform, providing useful information consistently and building long term trust.
The founders understand that meaningful progress requires continuous learning, farmer feedback and consistent execution.
Khetly’s Vision for the Future
Khetly’s long-term vision is to become a trusted digital agriculture platform for Indian farmers.
The company aims to progressively expand its agricultural information services and explore additional digital solutions that address farmers needs.
As Khetly grows, its focus will remain on making useful agricultural knowledge easier to access and helping farmers navigate the challenges of modern agriculture.
The vision is not simply to build another mobile application. It is to develop a digital agriculture ecosystem that can evolve alongside farmers and the agricultural sector.
An Idea Is Only the Beginning
The journey of Khetly reflects an important entrepreneurial lesson, identifying a real problem is only the first step.
Turning an idea into a working business requires commitment, teamwork, planning, learning and the determination to keep moving forward.
Chetan Akabari and Milan Thummar started with a shared understanding of the difficulties faced by farming families. They transformed that understanding into a vision and began building a digital platform to address an important information gap in agriculture.
Their journey continues, with the goal of reaching more farmers and improving the platform over time.
Khetly - Technology for Agriculture. Progress for Every Farmer.
Agriculture is central to India's economy and the livelihoods of millions of families. Improving access to useful information can play an important role in supporting better-informed farming decisions.
Khetly was born from a desire to help farmers access agricultural information more conveniently. Its journey is guided by the belief that technology creates meaningful value when it addresses real problems.
The mission is simple understand farmers, build for their needs and grow together with the farming community.
Khetly - Technology for Agriculture. Progress for Every Farmer.