Farmerline raises an additional $1.5 million in a pre-Series A round in addition to the $12.9 million pre-Series A funding it had previously announced in April, the company has revealed that it has raised an additional $ 1.5 million from social impact investor Oikocredit.
Since its founding in 2013 by Alloysius Attah and Emmanuel Addai, Farmerline is a Ghanaian agritech startup that offers assistance to farmers in that country. Smallholder farmers can access high-quality seeds and fertilizer through Farmerline, as well as receive free training in climate-smart farming techniques and connections to global markets.
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Farmerline co-founder and COO Emmanuel Addai stated that the business intends to enter francophone nations, beginning with Côte d’Ivoire by the first quarter of 2019. Farmerline would strengthen its supply chain with the pre-Series A, he continued, by deploying infrastructure and artificial intelligence. “We think that data will be crucial to the growth of both our business and the agribusiness sector. We want to be able to predict where infrastructure elements like delivery, route planning, and warehousing should be relevant to user data.
Through franchise shop alliances with agribusinesses and input dealers, Farmerline recently provided funding for inputs and crops totaling about US$ 18 million. A public crowdfunding campaign to raise GH1 million (US$ 100,000) for the company’s Support a Farmer initiative, which will give 25,000 farmers across Ghana access to 250,000 discounted bags of fertilizer, was also recently launched. 20% of the fund was contributed by Farmerline, according to Addai.
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Alloysius Attah, co-founder and CEO of Farmerline, issued a statement in which he stated: “We remain committed to supporting farmers and agribusinesses throughout Africa during this critical period. Our distribution, logistics, and financing services will continue with Oikocredit’s help, as well as that of our first-round funders, not only in Ghana but also in the Ivory Coast, where we’ve recently started the process of growing our team. Through this crucial period, we must collaborate closely with all partners and stakeholders in the agricultural sector to develop sustainable food system solutions that benefit African farmers.