Twiga Foods, a Kenya-based start-up connecting smallholder farmers in rural areas to informal retail vendors in cities, raised $10m in funding.
The round was led by IFC and TLcom with participation from existing investors Wamda Capital, DOB Equity, 1776 and Adolph H.Lundin. In conjunction with the funding, Wale Ayeni, who leads IFCs’ venture capital activities in Africa, and Maurizio Caio, Managing Partner at TLcom will join the board.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and offer new services.
Led by Grant Brooke, CEO, Twiga Foods is a business to business food distribution company that builds fair and reliable markets for agricultural producers and retailers through transparency, efficiency and technology. The company uses a platform where mobile technology, a network of food producers, pack houses and vehicles come together to supply and deliver a variety of produce directly from farmers to urban retailers.
Since it launched operations in 2014, Twiga has grown to work with over 13,000 farmers and 6,000 vendors in Kenya.
The company initially started off matching vendors to banana farmers, but now works with other produce such as tomatoes, cabbage, mango, potato and onion.
Other investors include DOB Equity, Wamda Capital, 1776 VC, AHL Venture Partners and Alpha Mundi.
FinSMEs
21/11/2018