Nigerian agritech company, ThriveAgric has raised $56.4 million to enable the company grow its farmer base and expand into new African markets, including Ghana, Zambia and Kenya.
The new raise – which follows a $9 million funding by the startup in 2020 – is debt funding from local commercial banks and institutional investors and also includes a co-investment grant of $1.75million from the USAID-funded West Africa Trade & Investment.
In addition to this, the startup announced on its Twitter page that it has signed an MoU on the supply of agricultural commodities and provision of storage facilities with the Nigerian Commodity Exchange (NCX), a development that follows the re-constitution of its Board & Executive Management in January this year.
ThriveAgric aims to build an Africa that feeds herself and the world and it believes that partnership with the Exchange will help to hasten this as the NCX is poised to become a world-class commodity trading company within the African and global commodity markets.
What ThriveAgric is saying
Uka Eje, Chief Executive Officer said the new investment takes the company one step closer to fulfilling its mission of building the largest network of profitable African farmers using technology to ensure food security.
He said, “We look ahead with renewed confidence knowing that our smallholder farmers will benefit financially even more from this new investment. Despite a volatile backdrop over the past few years, brought about by the global pandemic, ThriveAgric witnessed temporary payment disruptions to our retail crowdfunders. However, we overcame those challenges within a year and maintained company profitability. Our solid financial performance underscores investors’ faith in ThriveAgric.
“It is great to see that the market has overwhelmingly backed our farmers, and they are confident in the strategic decisions we have taken. ThriveAgric has increased its footprint to 20 states in Nigeria, and we look forward to a lengthy period of growth as we continue to link African farmers to capital, data-driven best practices and access to local and global markets for their commodities.”
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