raised from 5,208 investors through Growpital's unlicensed farming LLPs
Growpital's fake jeera harvest helped hide a ₹193 crore fraud
Between 2020 and early 2024, Growpital raised ₹192.88 crore from 5,208 investors by making them nominal partners in 3 LLPs: ZF Project 1, ZF Project 2 and ZF Project 3. Investors could put in as little as ₹5,000 per unit. None of this was registered with SEBI as a Collective Investment Scheme, which Indian law requires whenever you pool money from the public and promise returns from a managed portfolio.
The sell was assured, tax-free returns of 10 to 17% a year from farming. "Tax-free" sounds plausible because Indian agricultural income is exempt from tax, but only when it comes from land you actually cultivate. A pooled scheme that routes investor money through LLPs does not qualify. And no investment in India can legally guarantee returns, assured or otherwise.
The clearest sign of fabrication is the jeera plot. Growpital claimed ₹61.68 crore in revenue from cumin seeds grown on 75 acres in Barmer, Rajasthan. That single claim was 83.6% of its total reported farming revenue of ₹73.78 crore. SEBI checked it against government data: at a standard yield of 124 kg per acre and a Barmer mandi price of ₹320 per kg, 75 acres of jeera could have produced at most ₹29.76 lakh. The claimed figure was ~207 times that.
The raised money moved through a 2-layer pipeline. From the ZF Project LLPs it went to a layer of supplier entities, then to revenue entities, and finally to Yotta Agro Ventures, a company the scheme's promoters controlled. SEBI traced ₹95.60 crore moving to Yotta Agro with no actual business activity behind the transfers. A further ₹8.53 crore went into acquiring a company called Grobanana. Those 2 flows together account for ₹104.13 crore, or 54% of the total raised.
SEBI's confirmatory order of April 2024 locked in its findings against the 8 original Noticees from the January 2024 interim order. The March 2025 Show Cause Notice then covered 30 Noticees in full. The 28 who did not settle were adjudicated separately: the combined penalty on them was ₹25.10 crore, with 5-year market bans for the 8 principal operators and 3-year bans for the other 20.
Nutrikosh India Private Limited and Alok Chaudhary, 2 of the 30, settled through this order instead. Nutrikosh was alleged to have acted as a conduit, routing ₹7.03 crore through the scheme: 3.6% of the total raised, with the other ₹185.85 crore moving through the remaining 28 parties. Each settled for ₹40.56 lakh, making the combined settlement ₹81.12 lakh: 5.8% of what Nutrikosh moved, and 0.42% of the full scheme, without admitting or denying anything.
The bigger question is investor recovery. SEBI directed a refund of the full ₹192.88 crore outstanding, with 12% annual interest from 29 January 2024. By September 2026 that interest has run 32 months, adding roughly ₹61.72 crore to the liability. Whether that money can actually be recovered from the promoters is a different matter entirely.
Growpital's ₹192.88 crore drained out through 4 routes
Where SEBI traced every rupee raised from 5,208 investors through 3 farming LLPs. Almost half went to Yotta Agro Ventures with no real business behind the transfers.
SEBI, Interim Order in the matter of Growpital Platform, 29 January 2024; Settlement Order, 28 September 2026 · April 2020 to January 2024