The agricultural sector in Africa has a significant social and economic impact. Per McKinsey. The proportion of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa exceeds 60%, while agriculture represents approximately 23% of the region’s GDP.
But despite the clear opportunity in the agricultural sector, it is difficult for Africa to successfully participate in global supply chains due to supply chain and infrastructure constraints. As a result of the abundance of small and medium-sized farms, increasing productivity is essential to strengthen economic conditions in African countries.
To this end, Ghanaian agricultural technology company Complete Farms The program seeks to transform agricultural practices in the region by developing critical technical and physical infrastructure to enhance efficiency in the agricultural value chain. It was raised recently Closed $10.4 million pre-Series A financing round ($7 million in equity and $3.4 million in debt) for the combination. Her efforts.
Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) and Alitheia Capital (through its uMunthu II Fund in partnership with Goodwell Investments) co-led the equity portion of the round. In addition, Proparco, Newton Partners and VestedWorld Rising Star Fund participated. Debt financing was provided by Sahel Capital’s SEFAA (Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa) Fund, Alpha Jiri Investment Fund of Alpha Mundi Group, and Global Social Impact Investments.
“We are impressed with the progress Complete Farmer has made in facilitating access to global trade for Ghanaian farmers, as well as introducing them to new crops and sustainable agricultural practices,” said Tamer El Raghi, Managing Director of ARAF. Investment. “Our complete farmer technology platform and farming protocols enable farmers to access high-quality inputs, agricultural support and premium markets, resulting in improved yields and incomes as reported by the farmers themselves.”
Image credits: A complete farmer
Complete Farmer describes itself as a comprehensive agricultural marketplace that connects African producers and global industries to markets, resources, competitive data and each other. This platform is a comprehensive, comprehensive resource that leverages proprietary farming protocols for crop production, enabling smallholders and commercial farmers to grow commodities that meet global market specifications, thus ensuring post-harvest access.
Since its launch in 2017, the agricultural technology has undergone several iterations before its current state. After graduating as a mechanical engineer, CEO Desmond Cooney He tried his hands at several projects, including a device that turns organic kitchen waste into methane gas and a vertical farming project. However, Kony quickly found his footing in agriculture after inheriting his father’s farm, where he discovered many challenges widespread throughout the value chain.
“My area of expertise was production engineering, and I wanted to digitize my father’s estate. This is how Complete Farmer started,” he mentioned in the call. “However, this ambition can be ambiguous, as one must identify a business model that works; What is the product, etc. We had to make a lot of adjustments to define both.”
Initially, the company acted as a contractor to plant farms on behalf of clients. In 2018, the group launched a crowdfunding platform that allows users to invest in sustainable farms and monitor agricultural activities. A finalist in the TechCrunch Battlefield Africa competition has secured nearly $150,000 in seed funding from MEST Africa. It pushed ahead with its solution until the pandemic hit, which disrupted the operations of many crowdfunding companies, leading to scalability and default issues.
Due to these issues, platforms like Farmcrowdy and Crowdyvest have suspended or shut down their operations. It became clear to Complete Farmer, which began raising a seed round in 2020, that investors weren’t enthusiastic about agricultural crowdfunding. As a result, it moved to an aggregation and marketplace model, similar to what Thrive Agric, a former crowdfunding platform, now uses with great success.
The marketplace model combines agtech expertise with working as a contractor and obtaining crowdfunding, Cooney said. He explained that Complete Farmer realized it could provide customers with necessary crops by leveraging its relationship with thousands of farmers from previous iterations of the platform. Accra-based Agritech has raised $2.2 million for its seed round from investors and accelerators, including Ingressive Capital, EchoVC, Samurai Incubate, Kepple Ventures and Norsken Accelerator.
“We realized there was a demand and we needed to determine how to meet it.” One of the most important insights we gained was that for the majority of large buyers, such as fast-moving consumer goods and food manufacturers, there was a specific quality they wanted that most African farmers, who were seeking access to, lacked. markets and achieve higher returns.” The CEO noted. “As farmers, they probably know how to grow soybeans. But they don’t know how to get the specifications these big buyers want, such as oil and protein content. So, using a data-driven methodology, we have developed farming protocols that help smallholder farmers farm more efficiently, produce superior commodities and meet market demand.
The Complete Farmer program provides producers and buyers of agricultural commodities with two basic solutions: CF Farms And Buyer CF. Its farmer-focused product, CF Grower, helps African farmers improve their productivity, access global markets, and enhance their livelihoods through precision farming tools and data-driven farming protocols.
CF Buyer, on the other hand, provides global buyers with reliable and convenient access to goods grown to their specifications. On the platform, buyers have access to a wide network of qualified producers, can obtain quality-certified goods through a streamlined digital process and can transparently monitor the progress of their orders from order to fulfillment, giving them full control over their purchasing process. Khula, Twiga Foods and Farmerline are among Complete Farmer’s competitors.
Growth in terms of users and revenue has been immediate after pivoting two years ago. Complete Farmer says it has brought together more than 12,000 farmers across five major regions in Ghana. The platform also supervised the cultivation of more than 30,000 acres of land, delivering goods to Asia, Europe and other parts of the world while minimizing post-harvest losses. By the end of 2021, the six-year-old farming company, which takes a 30% commission on profits made for each trade between farmers and buyers, had annual revenue of $2.8 million. Meanwhile, it finished 2022 with $5.3 million and is on track to reach $7.5 million this year, according to Cooney.
The new product lines will generate additional revenue streams, which are necessary for Complete Farmer to meet its revenue expectations. Cooney says the agritech company is working on a combined financing product to facilitate direct transfers from buyers to farmers and a sales platform where farmers can buy fertilizers and commodities to make their farms more efficient.
As the agritech company enters its next growth phase, a portion of the investment will be used to scale these products, establish strategic partnerships with key stakeholders, support its team and expand local operations. In addition, it plans to use the debt facility to finance capital expenditures and working capital investments, such as expanding fulfillment centers in Ghana (it currently has eight) and launching new centers in markets such as Togo.