Nigerian digital and crowd-funded agriculture platform, FarmCrowdy has announced raising a $1m seed fund, barely a year after it launched, from TechStars, Cox Ventures and Social Capital. Farmcrowdy’s digital platform connects investors to farmers through sponsorship packages to fund higher yields for a share of the returns.
“What makes Farmcrowdy different from other platforms is it turns a complex problem into a digital marketplace,” Farmcrowdy CEO Onyeka Akumah told TechCrunch. “We’re taking care of funding for farmers, training for farmers, providing the market for the farmers to sell. We’re taking care of the logistics to move farm harvests to the market and making sure farmers earn a decent return at the end of their cycle,” he said.
“Today’s seed announcement is a remarkable milestone for us and Nigeria’s agri-tech industry as a whole – especially having just celebrated the anniversary of our first year of operations in November 2017,” said Onyeka Akumah, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Farmcrowdy.
“It will allow us to build on our earlier traction as we continue to introduce Nigerians to this exciting new category of partnering with farmers for impact and return. We are happy to amplify our work with the farmers across new states in Nigeria while empowering local farmers by hiring more agriculture technology experts to impart knowledge to ensure best practice in farming methods. We’re thrilled that as a Nigerian startup operating for just over a year, we have a group of investors who share in the vision and mission of Farmcrowdy as much as we do.”
There is now the opportunity for farm sponsors and farm followers to digitally track the progress of their sponsored farms from their mobile devices. The app has seen close to 5,000 downloads in the three weeks since launch, positioning the startup to take on more farm followers and sponsors both locally in Nigeria and globally.
“Onyeka Akumah and the Farmcrowdy team are changing the global dynamics of farming and agriculture. TechStars is proud and honoured to be a continued part of the Farmcrowdy journey via investment from TechStars Ventures, the venture capital arm of TechStars. We first met the Farmcrowdy team at TechStars Atlanta in partnership with Cox Enterprises and were immediately impressed by their vision, execution, and the vast scope of their potential impact to the world,” said Cody Simms, a partner at Techstars Ventures.
