Participated · Debt Financing · Oct 2024

Winich Farms operates a platform that connects rural farmers to off-takers (retailers and informal processors) via agent-run collection points and a mobile app where retailers place orders that agents fulfill within 24–72 hours. The company negotiates fair prices with farmers, sells to off-takers at a slight markup (currently ₦720 per kg of paddy rice excluding delivery), and splits revenue among farmers, agents, and the company. It processes monthly orders up to ₦3.7 billion (~$2.2M) and reports a GMV of $30 million, with agent count growing from about 1,000 in 2022 to over 4,000 in early 2024. Winich says it serves more than 150,000 users across farmers, agents, and truck drivers and provides credit access by linking farmers who complete supply cycles to financial partners. The company issues Verve cards to underbanked farmers in partnership with Sterling Bank and plans to issue 195,000 cards in the coming months. To reduce delivery times to distant states, Winich will establish regional fulfillment centres across Nigeria’s six geo-political zones and invest in technology and card operations to scale. Winich Farms operates a farm-to-retailer agritech platform that connects food producers (farmers) directly to off-takers such as small retailers and factories, cutting out excessive middlemen. The platform resolves transactions and settlements within 24 hours and uses a hybrid offline-online model—USSD, SMS, collection-centre agents and a mobile app—to onboard less tech-savvy farmers. The mobile app, launched in June, adds in-platform real-time driver tracking, inventory planning, and payment options; the company is also developing a buy-now-pay-later credit product and plans to provide inventory insurance. As of Jan 2022 Winich reports over 29,000 active food producers, the capacity to move 127 tonnes of produce every 24 hours, and $17.1 million in transaction volume across 461 agents/collection centres. The platform services 500+ retail groups and informal processors across eight cities and has created jobs for hundreds of truck drivers while aiming to reduce food waste and improve food quality and distribution efficiency at affordable costs.

Participated · Debt Financing · Sep 2023

Complete Farmer uses digital technology to build a more efficient agricultural supply chain for smallholder farmers in West Africa. The company offers a digital platform that connects more than 12,000 smallholder farmers directly to global food buyers and agricultural input suppliers. It also invests in the infrastructure required to strengthen the agricultural value chain and address issues such as limited market access, fragmented value chains, and inconsistent product quality. Founded in 2017, Complete Farmer aims to overcome these obstacles and boost agricultural expertise for its farmers. The firm is pursuing innovation and productivity improvements to provide smallholders with more stable incomes and stronger rural livelihoods. Recently it received a $5m (€4.3m) debt investment to support these efforts. Complete Farmer operates an end-to-end agricultural marketplace that links thousands of Ghanaian smallholder and commercial farmers to global buyers via two products: CF Grower (farmer-facing precision farming and cultivation protocols) and CF Buyer (buyer-facing procurement and quality-certified sourcing). The company leverages proprietary cultivation protocols and precision tools to help farmers meet global commodity specifications and reduce post-harvest losses. Since launching in 2017, Complete Farmer says it has organized over 12,000 farmers across five regions and overseen cultivation on more than 30,000 acres, taking a 30% commission on trade profits. The business has eight fulfillment centers in Ghana and plans to expand domestic operations and open centers in markets such as Togo. New product lines under development include an embedded finance remittance product and a vendor platform for inputs; management intends to use equity funding to scale products, form strategic partnerships, and grow the team. The company will use the debt facility for CAPEX and working capital to expand fulfillment capacity. Complete Farmer operates an agribusiness marketplace focused on Ghana’s under‑financed and under‑resourced smallholder farmers. The platform seeks to boost smallholders by linking them to buyers, financing and aggregation services. The company used a $50,000 cash prize from a pitch competition to help scale its operations to the point where venture funding became an option. Last March Complete Farmer secured a $400,000 seed round backed by Africa‑focused venture fund Ingressive Capital. The startup’s fundraising occurred amid a broader scarcity of agrifoodtech capital in Ghana, where agrifoodtech received only about $3 million of the roughly $160 million invested across Africa in the prior year. No operating metrics or revenues were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Series B · Dec 2021

TradeDepot operates a platform that digitizes and optimises the informal supply chain for micro-, small- and medium-sized retailers, aiming to unlock higher sales and margins. The company focuses on low-income retailers in Nigeria, the majority of whom are women, and its work targets supply-chain constraints and inefficiencies. British International Investment (BII) describes its support as part of a 'VC Scale-up' strategy to help the company grow and enhance economic opportunities for those retailers. BII first committed to TradeDepot in 2021 and made a further commitment in 2023; the company is recorded as domiciled in the USA. BII’s involvement has included environmental and social due diligence and an ESAP covering items such as developing an ESMS, labour and working conditions, road and fire safety, emergency response, and grievance management. No operating metrics or revenue/user figures are disclosed in the provided article. TradeDepot operates a B2B marketplace that links consumer-goods brands and wholesalers with thousands of small retailers, owning warehouses and a fleet of drivers to handle distribution. The company has embedded financial services into its ShopTopUp platform, offering a buy-now-pay-later credit line that delivers products to merchants while they repay in installments (monthly effective interest rate near 5%). TradeDepot grew from more than 40,000 merchants last year to over 100,000 today and reported a fivefold increase in GMV during that period; its BNPL model has driven a roughly 200% increase in transaction volumes for store owners. Historically the company used equity to finance early credit while building scoring models from retailer purchase and repayment data; it is now structuring debt to scale that lending. With the new funding TradeDepot plans to double down in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa and expand its footprint across Nigeria to capture more of its ~5 million SME target market. The company positions its supply-chain capabilities and embedded finance products as complementary tools to increase ordering power and retailer sales. TradeDepot operates a B2B e-commerce marketplace for consumer goods, aggregating more than 40,000 micro-retailers and enabling orders via Android apps, WhatsApp and a toll-free number with delivery by its vans and tricycles. The company offers inventory management, CRM and data-management software to help brands plan and monitor sales routes and gain trade insights; clients include Nestlé, Unilever and Arlo. TradeDepot says it activates a new store every three minutes, receives a retailer order every four seconds on average, and tripled its volume of trade in the past 12 months. More than 75% of the retailers on its platform are women, and the company runs mentorship and market-linkage programs aimed at female entrepreneurs. Financially, TradeDepot recently closed a $10 million pre-Series B equity round and plans to use the proceeds to expand its network and deepen partnerships with large brands. It intends to move into financial services, launching credit facilities and other products that leverage transaction data to assess real-time creditworthiness. TradeDepot has built a 360-degree platform that integrates manufacturers, distributors and retailers to streamline distribution of fast-moving consumer goods. The platform gives small retailers a real-time view of prices and discounts, lets them place orders that are routed to nearby depots for delivery, and provides manufacturers visibility to optimise deliveries and pricing. Its solution has been deployed across Nigeria in distributors' warehouses and the startup works with six consumer packaged-goods companies including Promasidor, Coca Cola and Population Sciences International. TradeDepot has also signed several distributors, notably MDS Logistics, whose 50 depots will be integrated onto the platform. The company says the funds will support expansion of its footprint in Nigeria and development in other countries. Founded in 2015, TradeDepot positions itself to reduce distribution waste and costs for millions of informal retailers in emerging markets.