ThriveAgric, a fast-growing technology-driven agricultural company, has raised $56.4 million in debt funding from local commercial banks and institutional investors.
The raise also included a co-investment grant of $1.75 million from the USAID-funded West Africa Trade & Investment. The new investment will enable the company to grow its 200,000+ farmer base, and expand into new African markets, including Ghana, Zambia and Kenya.
Founded in 2017 (and fully operational since 2018), ThriveAgric empowers farmers in Nigeria to sell their products to FMCGs and food processors, leveraging its proprietary technology to access finance as well as improve productivity and sales to promote food security.
“The new investment takes us one step closer to fulfilling our mission of building the largest network of profitable African farmers using technology, to ensure food security. 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 were able to overcome those challenges within a year and maintained company profitability. Our solid financial performance underscores investors’ faith in ThriveAgric.”
Uka Eje, the chief executive officer
The technology, an Agricultural Operating System (AOS), works entirely offline, dispatches USSD to farmers, and powers Android apps used by field agents to help digitally collate creditworthy farmers and gather relevant farm data.
This latest funding follows the $9 million raised by the company in 2020. Over the past 12 months, ThriveAgric’s revenues has increased five-fold, with a year-on-year increase of 277% in farmer numbers. The strong margin performance was boosted by farmers using the company’s AOS proprietary product.
The company supports Africa’s agriculture sector by assisting smallholder farmers in producing high-quality grains. Harvests, including maize, rice and soybeans, are stored in many of the company’s 450+ warehouses in Bauchi, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano and Katsina states in Nigeria, before being commoditized and offered to local and global trade markets at a premium price.
