A South African agritech startup, Skudu has raised funding from one of Africa’s pioneering agrifood tech investor, AgVentures, to help in its strive in becoming one of the topmost online marketplaces for agricultural produce and inputs in Africa.
AgVentures stated that currently, the online marketplace leaves consumers with lots of choices to choose from, however, it is not the same for the sellers and buyers of agricultural produce and inputs, which is an indication that the market is ripe for disruption.
Skudu was founded in 2018 and it helps agribusinesses reduce the costs of inputs and improve yields by becoming proficient at agronomy, or soil science through technology. It helps to achieve the aim by assists farmers and advisors enhance their input training and accuracy. The platform also helps reduce the agricultural value chain and increases the choice of users by directly linking both sellers and buyers.
In a press conference, Skudu’s stalwart, Cobus van der Merwe, made a comment regarding the partnership stating that:
“We are excited to partner with AgVentures given its deep agri-industry and technology expertise. At Skudu, we want to make it easy for buyers and sellers to find each other. Saving them money in the process and helping them increase their efficiency”.
Regards the statement, it means AgVentures is getting a stake in the company.
The CEO of AgVentures Gerhard Visagie revealed they decided to partner Skudu due to the experienced management team, traction, and its ambitious plans.
“We were attracted to Skudu, due to their highly experienced management team, ambitious plans, and traction gained in a short space of time.”
He added that they believe Skudu is bringing much-needed innovation to the South African agrifood sector with the plan of potential expansion across continents in the future.
How Skudu Operates
The agritech startup uses simple solutions trying to solve complex challenges. The three approaches are the Market, Match and Exact modules.
The Skudu market Module makes it easy for farmers to find similar or same agricultural inputs from different input manufacturers, allowing them to get a quote from suppliers who supply their farm location. Farmers get notified as soon as quotes return and are outlined on a page from where they can accept the preferred quote. Presently, the Skudu platform only supports ameliorants and fertilizers, however, they are planning on including other inputs in the future.
The Skudu Match Module connects sellers and buyers of agricultural products on the platform which allows them to accept as well as capture the transaction terms via a blockchain e-contract. Suduku Match is a leading platform in South Africa that will help reduce the cost of trading agricultural commodities.
With Skudu Exact, farmers or their advisors can digitally manage their farm data which helps in attaining better accuracy in input planning. Currently, it allows users to plan soil sample collections and enables them to coordinate their soil sample data immediately they receive it from analytical labs.
AgVentures’ Investments
AgVentures aims at venting continents agrifood potentials through partnerships with innovative privately owned agrifood technology companies like Skudu.
AgVentures’ first investment was the funding of an Israeli startup FruitSpec in 2019, to reform the conventional paper-based fruit yield estimations with a patented computer vision-based system. Skudu was its second investment.
