Nigeria’s First Agritech Start-up Firm Secures $1m Seed Funding

By Vincent  Obia

Nigeria’s first and leading digital agritech start-up company, Farmcrowdy, said it had secured $1 million seed funding from a range of international and local investors. A release by the company said the investors included Cox Enterprises, Techstars Ventures, Social Capital, Hallett Capital, Right-Side Capital, Tyler Scriven, Michael Cohn, Josephine Group, FC Agro Allied SPV, and Dr. Christof Walter.

Launched over 12 months ago, Farmcrowdy, the only African start-up from Techstars Atlanta’s 2017 cohort, connects small scale farmers with sponsors, who invest in a variety of farm cycles. A farm cycle can be anything from poultry (3-5 months) to cassava (9 months). The farmers receive on-the-ground advice from Farmcrowdy’s technical field specialists who also give them training in better agriculture practices and provide them with quality farm input. Prior to harvest, Farmcrowdy works with pre-arranged buyers who assist the farmers to sell their yield at harvest and earn a decent margin. 

The sponsor then gets their original sponsorship plus 40% of the profit from the harvest, the farmer receives 40% of the profit, and Farmcrowdy receives 20% of the profit. Farm sponsors can get between 6-25% returns after harvest, depending on the farm type they sponsor.

The brainchild of Nigerian entrepreneur, Onyeka Akumah, said Farmcrowdy had to-date recorded about 1,000 farm sponsors from Nigerians in Nigeria, the US and UK. The company has aggregated a combined 4,000 acres of farmland across eight states in Nigeria and worked with more than 2,000 small scale farmers.

Farmcrowdy said with the seed fund, it planned to expand into 20 states in Nigeria, from the current eight, work with 4,000 additional small-scale farmers, and engage a combined 20,000 new farm followers and farm sponsors on its platform to learn about the opportunities in agriculture and partner with farmers.