Twiga Foods founders have sold part of their stake to a French long-term investment company, Creadev, for Ksh 500 million (US$ 5 million).
As part of the secondary investment, the early investors of Kenyan-based technology based B2B platform that aggregates retail demand and provides low cost access to better quality food, have adopted a strategy to accommodate later stage and longer-term investors.
They are Adolf H. Lundin Charitable Foundation, Blue Haven Ventures, Crescat Limited, Omidyar Networks, Index Ventures through Project Hand Purpose Trust, and Uqalo.
Other Twiga investors include DOB Equity, Wamda Capital, 1776 VC, AHL Venture Partners and Alpha Mundi.
The CEO of Twiga Foods Peter Njonjo said: “Having Creadev join our shareholding is a huge boost to our mission to deliver safe, affordable high-quality food to urban consumers, while providing reliable markets for farmers. It will support our efforts towards growing our ecosystem of farmers and retailers”.
Twiga, which was founded in 2014, currently works with 17,000 farmers, and 2,500 retailers daily and is looking to further expand its operations within and outside Kenya.
In a statement, Sarah Ngamau and Pierre Fauvet, who head Creadev’s activities in Africa, said: “We are proud to enter into this long-term partnership with Twiga as they answer a massive market need: the structuration and formalisation of the food logistics supply chain. We are impressed by Twiga’s fast growth, driven by an experienced and result-oriented management team.”
“We believe the appointment of Mr Njonjo as CEO is another proof of Twiga’s ambitions and willingness to grow to the next level. We will leverage on Creadev’s international retail network and future funding capacity to support the team in executing this ambitious expansion plan and continue delivering their strong value proposition to small-holder farmers, informal retailers, and end customers,” they added.
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“We take the opportunity to thank Adolf H. Lundin Charitable Foundation, Blue Haven Ventures, Crescat Limited, Omydiar Networks, Index Ventures through Project Hand Purpose Trust, and Uqalo for their successful early-stage support to Twiga,” said the duo.
