FarmDrive gets an Investment from Safaricom’s Spark Venture Fund

Farmdrive a solution that focuses on smallholder farmers offering  serving by the use of mobile phones, alternative data, and machine learning to close the critical data gap that prevents financial institutions from lending to creditworthy smallholder farmers.

Having being launched in 2014 by a group of ladies whose main aim is to disrupt the small scale farming industry in Kenya, through their combined tech and agricultural knowledge. came the birth of  FarmDrive  a kenyan startup. Farmdrive having over 3000 farmers on board has enabled them access loans to an amount over Ksh 13 Million since the launch date. This is a good help for the farmers in the rural places depending on mobile phones to acquire funds and know the happenings.

Earlier today Safaricom announced that it has invested in the startup an undisclosed amount of funds  to ensure the agricultural sector has been well established and cultivated in the country . “In an era when market uncertainty is creating new challenges for the agricultural sector, mobile-based technology solutions like FarmDrive can empower farmers with the critical access to finance and to help expand their access to other essential services,” said Bob Collymore, chief executive officer (CEO) of Safaricom.

With the current fundings on the startup they aim to to expand their scale and hire staff to help out in there research, analysis and know what input.” We are excited about this investment because it enables us to scale this innovation, score more farmers, unlock more capital, and grow the agricultural loan portfolios of our financial institution partners. This is all good for the inclusive development of our country,” said Rita Kimani, co-founder of FarmDrive.

SPark Venture has previous backed up 4 startups in Kenya, Package delvery  startup Sendy;  e-learning startup Eneza Education; and informal sector employment app Lynk.