Safaricom’s Spark Venture Fund invests undisclosed amount in iProcure

Safaricom’s Spark Venture Fund has announced an undisclosed investment in iProcure. This is the second investment in AgricTech made by the fund after its investment in FarmDrive earlier this year. However this is the sixth and final African startup to benefit from the $1million set aside for investments.

Based out of Nairobi Kenya, iProcure is an agricultural supply chain platform in rural Africa. In addition to complete procurement and last mile distribution services, it provides business intelligence and data-driven stock management across the supply chains.

The investment will enable Nairobi-based iProcure to further develop its platform and expand beyond Kenya’s Central and Rift Valley regions into western and eastern Kenya. By doing so, iProcure hopes it can increase agricultural output in Kenya, which is currently hampered in parts by supply chain issues.

“At iProcure we are all about optimizing rural supply chains,” said Nicole Galletta, the startup’s chief operations officer. “We build both the supply chain technology in addition to ‘on-the-ground’ infrastructure to ensure smallholder farming communities get the inputs they require on terms that are convenient and affordable. We share an underlying belief, with Safaricom, that smallholder farmers are essential to our nation’s food security, and look forward to playing our part in improving the welfare of farmers across Kenya,” she added.

According to Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO,  “We started the Spark Fund with the aim of supporting emerging startups that use technology to transform lives. As it joins the outstanding crop of Spark Fund investees, iProcure will be instrumental in harnessing the power of technology to improve Kenya’s agri-business processes.”

Since its creation in 2014, Spark Fund has invested in Sendy, a marketplace for businesses and individuals to connect with drivers (2015);  MSurvey (2016), Eneza Education (2016), Lynk, which connects customers with professionals and artisans,  (FarmDrive 2017) and now iProcure.