Nigeria’s leading digital agriculture platform, Farmcrowdy is set to expand across the country after it secured an additional seed funding of $1 million. This follows the company’s initial investments of the same amount in 2017.
The funding is from international investors, Cox Enterprises and Techstars, as well as local investor Ajayi Solutions. It comes as the agri-tech company prepares for an upcoming Series A fundraising later in the year.
“We’re continually grateful that we have a group of investors who share and support our vision as much as we do. It is a great source of motivation for the entire team as we look to the next phase of growth as a company,” founder and CEO of Farmcrowdy, Onyeka Akumah, said.
The investment will be used to continue building the company’s business model, a statement by the company revealed. There are also expansion plans, which include covering 50 percent of all 36 states in the country over the next 12 months.
“We are delving into the possibility of utilising drone services for field analysis, improving our farmers yield with additional research and 3D mapping, as well as entering into formidable strategic partnerships that will grow the impact of our work,” Akumah added.
In a bid to improve the management of Farmcrowdy’s farmers and farm operations, the startup has also launched the Farmcrowdy TFS App, available to its Technical Field Specialists. The app will aid in better profiling farmers, managing inventory, as well as data collection and analysis from existing farmers.
Furthermore, it is in the process of upgrading the Farmcrowdy app to optimise user experience which currently has over 90,000 users and farm followers. This would better serve the startup’s existing farm sponsors and attract new sponsors to the platform.
The company also announced the launch of the Farmcrowdy Group, which will support the startup’s mandate of building agritech solutions that enable the achievement of food security in Africa.
Commenting on the investment, Partner at Techstars, Cody Simms said, “We are excited about the continued growth of the Farmcrowdy platform and thrilled to continue our support of the business with the most recent financing.”
Farmcrowdy is Nigeria’s first digital agriculture platform that connects small scale farmers across Nigeria with access to finance sourced from individuals and corporates.
Pioneers of digital agriculture in Nigeria since 2016, Farmcrwody has a team of 50.
Farmcrowdy has also empowered over 12,000 farmers across 14 states in the Nigeria, reared close to 2,000,000 broiler birds as part of its poultry farm cycles and cultivated over 16,000 acres of farmland with over 35,000 farm units sold to date.
