Digital Agriculture in LMICs - 26 Sep #30
Ghana’s Complete Farmer scores largest African agritech deal of the year so far
19/09/23
Indonesia’s Koltiva raises seven-figure investment to expand traceability solutions
Indonesia-based sustainable farming and supply chain traceability startup Koltiva has confirmed an undisclosed seven-figure series A funding round led by AC Ventures. Existing investors Silverstrand Capital and The Meloy Fund, together with Planet Rise, Development Finance Asia, and Blue 7 participated in the round.
Koltiva blends online and offline solutions to help multinational companies and their suppliers with traceability. It offers producer profiling and plot mapping, seed-to-table traceability, and training and coaching with its field experts and agronomist team. It is also building products that help with greenhouse gas assessments.
Koltiva states that it has to date served 1 million producers, almost half of these being Indonesian smallholders. It plans to use the fresh capital to expand its software-as-a-service (SaaS) for multinational corporations to have supply chain traceability from seed to table.
Koltiva said that that the demand for its solutions has grown due to the rise of stringent ESG oriented regulatory requirements. For example, the new EUDR regulation stipulates that over 50,000 businesses that sell products in EU markets must be deforestation-free.
20/09/23
Ghana’s Complete Farmer raises $10.4M for precision agriculture, market linkages
Ghana’s Complete Farmer has raised USD 10.4 million in a pre-Series A funding round, the largest agritech deal of the year in Africa so far. Out of the total investment, USD 7 million are in equity, and come from a group of funders led by The Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) and private equity fund manager Alitheia Capital through its uMunthu II Fund (a partnership with Dutch investment firm Goodwell). The remaining USD 3.4 million are in debt and come from Sahel Capital’s SEFAA Fund, Alpha Mundi Group’s Alpha Jiri Investment Fund and Global Social Impact Investments.
Founded in 2017, Complete Farmer is an end-to-end agri value chain digitisation solution. At its core is the CF Grower solution, which connects farmers to international markets and provides them with precision agriculture services using uses satellite, IoT technologies and crop data insights for crop growth optimisation and for market standards and specifications. CF Buyer then allows aggregators and agribusinesses to procure quality-certified goods from the Complete Farmer network. According to reports quoting the latest available data (2021), the company has a network of 12,000+ farmers in Ghana.
Source: Complete Farmer via Tech Crunch
20/09/23
Vietnam’s Regen X gets $500K for regenerative agriculture
RegenX, a Singapore-based agri/climate tech start-up operating in Vietnam, has raised USD 500,000 in pre-seed funding from Wavemaker Impact, a climatetech venture builder focusing on Southeast Asia. Regen X’s digital platform “Flywheel” enables agrifood buyers to source toxic-free and traceable ingredients directly from farmers. The company promotes regenerative agriculture practices such as intercropping, agroforestry, and the elimination of harmful pesticides and herbicides. RegenX currently works in in Vietnam’s coffee value chain. Wavemaker Impact is also behind the newly launched (June 2023) agritech Rize, which operates in Vietnam and Indonesia, and helps farmers implement strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in rice cultivation.
Vietnam is the world’s second largest producer of coffee, after Brazil. According to data from the International Coffee Organization (ICO), it is estimated that 95% of coffee is produced by 640,000 smallholders, of which only 1% have more than one acre of land.
22/09/23
India’s Ergos bags $10M to digitise grain storage, facilitate credit and market linkages
Indian agritech startup Ergos, has raised USD 10 million Series B to digitise grain storage, link farmers to markets, and provide affordable credit. The funding round was led by Norwegian investor Abler Nordic, and existing investors such as Aavishkaar Capital, Chiratae Ventures, and Trifecta Venture Debt Fund. Established in 2012, Ergos has an app-based solution dubbed Grainbank that enables farmers to book space for storage, convert their grains into tradable digital assets, obtain credit against those assets through partner financial service providers, and get better prices for their produce. Farmers can then obtain credit from partner FSPs for up to 70% of their stored and digitised grain. The company’s business model relies on fees paid by farmers to store grains (maize, wheat, paddy), fees from FSPs providing credit, and fees from crop buyers on the market linkage platform. Ergos reaches 160,000 farmers and has 200+ warehouses in the states of Bihar, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.
In other news…
19/09/23
Grow Asia announces climate fund to support 200,000 Southeast Asian farmers
Grow Asia has launched the USD 1 billion GrowBeyond Fund. It is its largest impact fund to date, and it is looking to unlock inclusive finance for small agribusinesses over the next 10 years through a public-private blended financing model. The fund will prioritise investments in climate-smart agriculture, regenerative practices, and innovative technologies, addressing the climate challenges faced by farmers and rural communities in Southeast Asia.
By consolidating investments from governments, financial institutions, private investors, fintech/agritech companies, alongside technical assistance providers, Grow Asia plans to deliver a suite of crop-specific financial and market services that are required for SMEs to scale their businesses and adopt regenerative practices. The fund aims to support 200,000+ farmers in accessing suitable financial products and technical assistance. Grow Asia is a multi-stakeholder platform established in 2015 by the World Economic Forum and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN to cultivate more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable food systems.
25/09/23
Uganda’s Ensibuuko to provide DFS in rural Malawi
Uganda-based fintech start-up Ensibuuko has expanded to Malawi in partnership with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). The partnership aims to digitise the processes and transactions of community banking schemes (Banki Mkhonde) in Malawi to enable underserved communities to access digital financial services. Established in 2014, Ensibuuko is a fintech that serves unbanked and under-banked communities in rural areas. It has a microfinance digital platform for SACCOs and lending companies, a savings group platform for Village Saving and Loans Associations (VSLAs), as well as digitally enabled crop insurance for farmers. According to Crunchbase, the startup has to date raised USD 2.7 million in funding.
23/09/23
Good reads: FAO’s take on digital tech for traceability and transparency in NENA
FAO has published a report on the feasibility of using digital technologies for traceability and transparency in the agrifood value chains in the Near East and North Africa region (NENA). The report focuses on four countries: Egypt, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tunisia and Jordan and on the data and palm oil value chains, which are deemed representative of the broader horticulture sector. It explores barriers and opportunities to deploy digital technologies, providing possible solutions and suggesting roles for key actors: private sector (including SMEs and producers), government, and international development agencies. The study calls for a coordinated mechanism among these actors to advance the sustainable operation of digital technologies. These include QR codes and the use of blockchain for tracing the journey of food from farm to table, and the use of mobile applications and e-commerce platforms to link more directly producers and buyers for transparency.