Founders Factory Africa, a Johannesburg based venture development and investment company has announced a partnership with Small Foundation, a Dublin-based philanthropic organization that will see it select 18 agritech startups for an acceleration and incubation program.
Small Foundation is making an undisclosed investment in FFA that will enable the agritech startups from across sub-Saharan Africa with their ideas and ventures to address challenges across the entire agricultural value chain.
The partnership is meant to support agritech startups that can innovate and improve the delivery of a range of services to smallholder farmers and micro, small and medium sized enterprises in the agricultural sector.
According to Founders Factory Africa, founded by Roo Rogers and Alina Truhina, the early stage founders will be required to apply to join the Founders Factory Africa Venture Scale or Venture Build portfolios. These startups will gain access to funding between $100,000 to $250,000 and hands-on technical support.
FFA will be investing a total of $300,000 in cash and hands-on support for companies in its Venture Scale program. However, the startups in Venture Build will be receiving up to$250,000 in funding.
The Venture Scale Program involves providing support for the existing startups operating in seed to pre-Series A stages. The Venture Build program is a program for founders wanting to launch a startup in Africa, who may have or may have a concept or an idea.
Additionally, all the participating agtech startups will have access to global capital, talent and knowledge transfer through the Founders’ group that includes Founders Factory in the UK, and a network of world class entrepreneurs, investors, corporates and successful startups across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US.
So far, there are twenty three companies across FFA’s Scale and Build portfolios .These startups mainly from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa have collectively secured more than $7 million during and after the program.FFA focuses on increasing this current number to nearly ninety startups in total by 2024.
In addition to the dedicated funding for agritech startups, FFA has also made investments in other startups with agritech solutions such as Nigeria’s Foodlocker which was selected due to its financial components. The company forecasts foodstuff demand though machine learning and helps buyers procure goods from smallholder farmers. Despite this proposition, FFA still classifies the startup as a fintech investment.
The fintech has caught on well with both local and international investors. However; this is not the same case with health tech and agritech. Small Foundation aims at improving this number in its own little way and concurrently has a plan to end extreme poverty in sub Saharan Africa by 2030.Working with FFA will enable the company achieve this objective.
Interested entrepreneurs with an agtech focus can apply at https://www.foundersfactory.africa/