South Africa-based award-winning agritech startup Khula, launched in 2018, is finding its niche in the ever-growing industry as it announced the launch of their new app in a statement yesterday, after closing a $1.3-million (R20-million) seed round led by AECI and ESquared Investments, to scale operations across the country.
The myriad challenges faced by farmers in Africa — inadequate financing, education, and input distribution — persist and greatly affect the agricultural output on the continent. But startups are providing innovative solutions to these problems, and South Africa’s Khula is an example.
On the surface, it would seem agritech in Africa hasn’t taken off as exponentially as other tech-operated industries. But it has: The agritech sector grew 44% year-on-year between 2016 and 2019, and the continent has the highest number of agritech services in the developing world, reaching more than 33 million smallholder farmers, according to a report from Farmers Review Africa.
Founded by Karidas Tshintsholo (CEO), Matthew Piper (CPO) and Jackson Dyora, the startup has recently been celebrated through several awards, including winning the MTN Business App of the year in SA for 2018/2019, making it into the ‘10 Social Enterprises in the World’ in the Chivas Regal Global Venture Competition and winning the African stage of the KPMG Global Tech Innovator competition.
The investment came in June of last year but Khula! decided to keep the round undisclosed, stalling the announcement to coincide with their recent Khula! Inputs App release. “AECI is exactly the kind of investor we were looking for at this early stage – we did not want an investor at the table who was ONLY going to ask us how we’d performed in a specific quarter, we wanted a long term partner that would execute with us. A partner with a great reputation in the industry and with an incredible distribution network; a partner whose long term success was tied to a business model like ours. And AECI fits that description perfectly for us,” commented CEO Tshintsholo in a statement.
The Khula! Fresh Produce Marketplace connects farmers to suppliers and allows farmers to sell their produce in bulk; The Khula! Funder Dashboard connects investors with farmers, and their newest product, the Khula! Inputs App, connects local farmers to local and international suppliers and service providers.
“Khula! has very attractive fundamentals, a sizable addressable market, app development capabilities, key agri-business networks, and a management team that wishes to work with AECI as their preferred agri-input and technical advisory partner,” stated Quintin Cross, Managing Director of AECI Plant Health.
“This is an exciting opportunity for AECI to digitally reposition itself in the agri- input market space while leveraging our product, technical and distribution capabilities. It aligns well with our corporate social responsibility and community outreach and supports the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals of Zero Hunger, Responsible Consumption and Production and Job Creation for a better world,” he said in closing.
