Shamba Pride has since 2016 labored to boost last-mile distribution for farm inputs and sort out worth exploitation and high quality points for farmers by means of its service provider community dubbed digishops.
The agtech has, to this point, constructed a community of retailers (agro-dealers) extending throughout 24 counties in Kenya, which represents simply over half of the nation. It now plans to scale additional into the nation to cowl extra retailers and agricultural areas within the subsequent one yr, and later discover neighboring markets like Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, which have comparable farm enter provide chain challenges, like sourcing, unpredictable costs, high quality challenges and stockouts.
Its Kenya development, which additionally consists of the growth of its franchise community, will likely be fueled by a $3.7 million debt-equity pre-series A funding the corporate has secured from the EU agriculture financing initiative EDFI AgriFI and Seedstars Africa Ventures (SAV). The brand new funding, which incorporates $1.7 million fairness, follows $1.1 million capital raised in 2021 from SAV and Grey Issues Capital.
Shamba Satisfaction digitizes agro-dealers to energy varied duties together with enterprise administration and stock ordering, which ensures the supply of provides like fertilizers and seeds to hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers in rural areas.
“Agriculture distribution in rural communities is heavily controlled by agro-dealers who decide how farmers access inputs, services and training. We are empowering these agro-dealers by giving them the right tools and technology for visibility of their businesses, for their professional and commercial development and right support for farmers around them,” Shamba Satisfaction founder and CEO, Samuel Munguti, advised TechCruch.
The agtech additionally supplies farmers with market linkages, Purchase Now Pay Later (BNPL) monetary providers and coaching data by means of its USSD platform.
It primarily targets small-scale farmers which are a part of Kenya’s agriculture sector, which contributes 33% of the nation’s gross home product, employs over 40% of the nation’s inhabitants and greater than 70% of these in rural settings. It additionally accounts for 65% of its export earnings, making it a key sector of the nation’s economic system and a spotlight space for innovators.
“Shamba Pride’s success is based on innovations which facilitate day-to-day farming activities. We’ve been proud to support a scalable model which creates additional revenues for farmers and agrovets (agro-dealers) and strongly contributes to successful women entrepreneurship,” stated Maxime Bouan, a basic accomplice at SAV, which final week obtained $30 million and $10.5 million from EIB and AFDB, respectively.
SAV is a sector-agnostic fund eager on startups that tackle primary wants comparable to schooling, healthcare and utilities, or enhancing items, providers and effectivity.
Shamba Satisfaction sources stock from companions comparable to French multinational Elephant Verve that provides it with “climate-smart” farm inputs, which is a part of the agtech’s technique to construct resilience for small-holder farmers.
