Seedstars Africa Ventures and Gray Matters Capital have announced leading a funding round of $ 1.1 million (Ksh123 million) to Nairobi-based Shamba Pride, a one-stop online-to-offline platform that connects smallholder farmers to quality inputs, services, and information through women and youth-owned DigiShops powered by technology.
The funding is aimed at supporting Shamba Pride’s national expansion and roll-out of its digital solution to over 1,000 digitalized shops. This will allow the company to empower hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers to boost their income and productivity through increased access to better quality inputs, information, financial services and market linkages.
“Shamba Pride is revolutionizing rural distribution systems for African farmers by transforming from traditional and informal systems to modern trade. Through Shamba Pride, existing last-mile agro entrepreneurs are able to digitalize their operations and provide smallholder farmers with right and affordable technology, quality products and services. The model establishes a network of smart micro-entrepreneurs serving the smallholder farmer community, allowing farmers to increase their farm productivity, sustain their employment and their household income,” said CEO and Founder Samuel Munguti.
The round was signed in the presence of Kenyan Cabinet Secretary Betty Maina and French Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade Franck Riester, KEMSA representatives and a series of international agricultural corporates.
“We are excited to have Seedstars Africa Ventures and Gray Matters Capital join the Shamba Pride family. Our momentum to revolutionize last mile distribution systems for African farmers has gained new momentum. The investment will propel our national growth to service hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers while creating a reliable community of smart micro-entrepreneurs offering improved services to farmers,” added Munguti.
Maxime Bouan, Partner at Seedstars Africa Venturessaid “Talented African early stage entrepreneurs continue to lack funding despite providing tangible adapted solutions. We are convinced Shamba Pride’s online-to-offline model is perfectly suited to tap into a huge market opportunity by upskilling existing value chains and finally offering farmers the quality counterparts they deserve. Beyond capital, we will continue to actively support the company through additional market linkages and corporate partnerships within Africa and beyond to guarantee farmers obtain the best value.”
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