Tanzanian agritech startup MazaoHub has closed an oversubscribed $2 million round combining $1.5 million in equity and $500,000 in non-dilutive capital, financing a push to take its climate-smart, data-driven agronomy model nationwide. The raise—led on the equity side by Catalyst Fund with participation from Nordic Impact Fund, Mercy Corps Ventures, elea Foundation, Impacc, and DOB Equity, and matched with non-dilutive support from the Livelihood Impact Fund—highlights investor appetite for solutions that address food security and climate resilience in tandem.
Founded in 2021, MazaoHub’s proposition blends artificial intelligence with hands-on extension services—what the team calls “Tech & Touch.” On the “tech” side, the startup builds low-cost soil sensors and portable test kits that capture field data and feed an offline-capable farm-management platform. Farmers receive dashboards, cost-analysis tools, and actionable agronomic guidance even in low-connectivity environments. On the “touch” side, a growing network of Farmer Excellence Centres (Kliniki za Kilimo) anchors in-person agronomy support, training, and troubleshooting close to where farmers live and work.
Early results point to both productivity and sustainability gains. By tailoring input use to real soil needs, MazaoHub says farmers can cut chemical fertilizer by up to 30%, increase adoption of organic manure, and optimize irrigation—reducing costs while lifting yields and lowering emissions. Those same data streams underpin traceability and quality assurance for buyers, tightening a historically leaky value chain. As CEO and co-founder Geophrey Tenganamba put it, “This is where sustainability meets scale.”
The new capital will be deployed across three priorities. First, hardware scale-up: increasing production of soil kits and sensors to reach far more farms at a lower unit cost. Second, field expansion: opening additional Farmer Excellence Centres across Tanzania to deepen last-mile agronomy and training. Third, market linkage: accelerating CropSupply.com, MazaoHub’s sourcing and traceability platform that ties verified farm output—and its underlying soil data—directly to buyers. The goal is a tighter loop: measure soil, improve practices, verify outcomes, and move produce with fewer intermediaries.
Investors view that loop as compelling not only for impact but also for efficiency. The model uses data to de-risk decisions across the chain: farmers decide what to apply and when; buyers gain transparency on origin and quality; and—critically—lenders can assess creditworthiness. Here, MazaoHub’s partnership with the CRDB Bank Foundation is pivotal. Under the arrangement, farmers in MazaoHub’s network no longer need traditional physical collateral; instead, real-time agronomy data collected across 15 regions helps validate productivity and repayment capacity. With support from the FUNGUO Innovation Programme (led by UNDP Tanzania and funded by the EU, Finland, and the British High Commission), the partnership pairs working capital with entrepreneurship training, financial literacy, land preparation support, crop management, post-harvest marketing, and access to inputs. More than 500,000 farmers are expected to benefit over the term of the agreement.
The funding structure itself is a case study in blended finance: philanthropic or catalytic capital absorbs some early risk, while commercial investors back a path to scale and sustainability. For Catalyst Fund and peers, MazaoHub demonstrates how local agronomic expertise plus granular data can make climate-smart practices both adoptable and investable.
Execution risks remain. Scaling physical hardware demands supply-chain reliability and sensor durability under real farm conditions. Maintaining service quality as new centres open will test training and supervision. And as volumes grow, MazaoHub must keep unit economics tight—ensuring hardware, field ops, and advisory services all compound rather than cannibalize margin. Still, the strategic architecture—pairing offline-capable tools, trusted local advisors, data-anchored finance, and traceable market access—addresses the key bottlenecks that have long constrained smallholders.
If MazaoHub can deliver consistent outcomes at scale—higher yields, lower input costs, easier access to finance, and dependable routes to market—it could set a template for climate-smart agriculture that travels beyond Tanzania. In a continent where agriculture employs millions yet suffers from information gaps and credit frictions, a practical, data-first model that works both on the phone and in the field is precisely the kind of innovation investors—and farmers—have been waiting to see.
