Twiga, a Kenyan agri-tech startup announced that it has raised $50 million to scale its food solutions across Africa.
This Series C fund raise was led by an existing French investor, Creadev, with other participants including existing investors such as TLcom Capital, IFC Ventures, DOB Equity and Goldman Sachs’ spinoff Juven. First-time investors include OP Finnfund Global and Endeavor Catalyst Fund.
This raise comes about a year after the same company secured US$29.4 million in debt funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to support more than 300 irrigated medium-scale contract farmers to complement Twiga’s seasonal smallholder farmer supply base. From data in Crunchbase, the startup has so far raised $15
Founded in 2014, Twiga provides a B2B e-commerce platform that simplifies the supply chain between fresh food producers, FMCG manufacturers and retailers. This removes the need for many intermediaries, significantly lowering the cost of food for consumers. Twiga claims it has over 100,000 registered customers and delivers more than 600 metric tons of product to over 10,000 retailers every day.
The company says it will use the new funds to test a new alternative way of producing food in Africa and cover both ends of traceability and mass scale. It also plans to use part of the funds to roll out low-cost manufactured food and non-food products under its brand before the end of the year.
According to Pierre Fauvet, Africa director at Creadev, in a statement, “We are deeply convinced in Twiga’s potential to revolutionize informal retail across Sub-Saharan Africa. Tapping into a $77 billion urban market on the continent, Twiga has gained significant traction since inception, leveraging on technology to optimize the food supply chain in African cities and constantly innovating to better tackle logistics, commercial, social and environmental challenges.”
CEO Peter Njonjo says the company is expanding to other East African markets (Uganda and Tanzania) before the end of 2021. He also said that Twiga will look at other markets — Cote d’Ivoire, DRC Congo, Ghana and Nigeria after a possible future raise in 2022.
