Agriculture is the cornerstone of several economies in Africa. Yet, the sector is underexploited. With the emergence of innovative digital solutions, hopes are high that the agriculture sector will actively contribute to development on the continent. 

Apollo Agriculture is a Kenyan startup founded in 2016 by  Benjamin Njenga, Earl St Sauver, and Eli Pollak. Through its digital platform, accessible through an android app only, it allows farmers access to inputs, funding, and previously inaccessible markets.  

It aims to help its users maximize their profits. Since its creation, the startup has completed several funding rounds, totaling US$52.2 million, to upgrade its technology and support growth. 

“We are continuing to invest in growing faster; serving more farmers, helping them increase their acreage, and speeding up business. And So it will be a continued expansion in both Kenya and new markets,” said CEO Eli Pollak.   

To access the services offered by Apollo Agriculture, farmers must register through the android app, and provide information including their marital status and their cultivated areas. After that step, Apollo Agriculture collects satellite imagery of the farms and uses artificial intelligence to estimate solvency and machine learning to make better decisions concerning the loans that can be granted to a specific farmer. 

The startup claims over 100,000 farmers, more than a thousand retailers, and 5,000 agents, who operate across the country to attract farmers even from the most remote areas. For 2022, its ambition is to double the number of farmers in its portfolio. 

Adoni Conrad Quenum

After four years of professional career, Uka Eje traveled abroad to sharpen his skills to efficiently meet the needs of the more than 200,000 farmers he assists.  

Uka Eje was born and raised in a farming community in Benue State, Nigeria. Though he found his passion for agriculture quite early, the man who birthed agritech Thrive Agric started committing to farmers between 2012 and 2016. During this period, Eje was working at Royal Impact Corp, “a social enterprise that builds systems around the food, agricultural, and technological sectors and aimed at solving the daily challenges faced by a targeted community. There, he grasped the many opportunities agriculture could offer if proper practices were implemented.

In 2016, the Nigerian entrepreneur co-founded Thrive Agric with Ayodeji Arikawe to improve the living conditions of smallholder farmers.

Leveraging technology, Thrive Agric collects and analyzes farm management data to make smallholder farmers more productive, notably by devising personalized financing, farming, and marketing plans.

To be more useful to farmers, Uka Eje enrolled in food production courses at the University of Reading, and Innovation courses at Leeds University between 2016 and 2017.

In March 2022, Uka Eje successfully raised US$56.4 million to expand the operations of his startup, which was claiming more than 200,000 farmers in his client base at the time. His expansion targets are notably Ghana, Zambia, and Kenya. “The new investment takes us one step closer to fulfilling our mission of building the largest network of profitable African farmers using technology to ensure food security,” he said after the fundraising operation.

To date, Thrive Agric has funded more than 15,000 farmers across 20 states in Nigeria. The achievement earned Uka Eje various awards, including the 2018 Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) award. He was also featured in Forbes’ Top 30 under 30 Most Promising Africans in 2019. The same year, Thrive Agric was selected to participate in the  Y Combinator Winter 2019 batch and the Go Global Africa fund, in the Google Developers Launchpad. In 2021, Africa CEO Summit named Thrive Agric one of Africa’s most promising startups.

Melchior Koba

Afrikamart is a Senegalese fresh produce distribution startup that offers its marketing services to agri-food producers. It has an online platform where merchants, hotels, restaurants, and supermarkets can buy their fresh products. Launched in 2018, Afrikamart was founded after Mignane Diouf, its founder, noticed that it was easier for retailers to import fruit and vegetables from Morocco than to buy them locally in Senegal.  

The startup collects fresh products from thousands of producers in rural areas for distribution to retailers in urban areas. In doing so, it guarantees better incomes for farmers, better prices for retailers, and quality products for end consumers.  

To become Afrikamart suppliers, producers fill in contact information to allow the startup to reach out for more information about their products and whether they can be sold on the platform.

Clients also have to follow a set of procedures like the products they are willing to buy and which quantity they are planning to buy weekly. 

Afrikamart claims to have delivered 8,000 kilograms of products daily in 2021 and created 200 indirect jobs thanks to the collaboration with more than 600 agri-food producers. Its long-term plan is to expand into more West African markets by building on the supply chain expertise and the success it acquired in Senegal.  

Adoni Conrad Quenum 

Clinic Agro has helped analyze thousands of hectares of cultivable lands in several African countries. The ambition of its developer, Pyrrus Koudjou, is to improve food security and help lift farmers out of poverty.

Pyrrus Koudjou (photo)’s plant clinic, ClinicAgro, recently launched a fundraising campaign to expand its operations. The agricultural startup created in 2019 is the result of a discussion between its creator and a farmer. During that discussion, Pyrrus Koudjou discovered the various problems facing the agricultural sector.  Realizing that the problems are almost the same everywhere, he decided to find a solution to provide farmers with vital information needed for the success of their activities.   

"Africa […] and Cameroon in particular, need stable food supplies because the population is growing exponentially. In that context, we must help farmers optimize their production and space utilization, reduce their ecological footprint and preserve natural resources for future generations," explains the social entrepreneur and computer scientist.  

Connected to a mobile app through Bluetooth, the ClinicAgro kit offers advanced diagnostics of soils and diseases that can affect plants. Within 60 seconds, it can provide various indicators like fertilization rate, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium level or the nutrient index.

Based on the result of the analysis, ClinicAgro will provide recommendations to improve the soil, its yields, and ultimately the farmer’s income. Users can also submit pictures of diseased plants for an artificial intelligence algorithm to identify the disease affecting that plant and appropriate solutions.

Available in 6 languages, ClinicAgro is a decision-making tool essential for farmers.  The eponymous start-up was officially launched in February 2021. To date, ClinicAgro has manufactured 12 kits, which have been deployed in several countries, including Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Togo, and France. Some 1,200 hectares of land have been analyzed using the technological solution.  

"What motivates me every day is my target audience: farmers. My goal is to find solutions to help them achieve optimal yields,” says Pyrrus Koudjou, whose target is to help analyze 1.8 million hectares of cultivable lands in Cameroon.

Pyrrus Koudjou is a tech enthusiast. He has developed several solutions based on artificial intelligence. Thanks to ClinicAgro, he received numerous awards including the Coup de  Cœur awards during Med’Innovant Africa 2019, the grand prize of Antic 2019, and Cultivez le Numérique Morocco as well as the main prize of  Espoir Afric Startup Summit 2019 in Paris. In 2019, as the top winner of Orange Social Entrepreneur, Pyrrus Koudjou joined the acceleration program offered at Orange digital center Douala. Thanks to the mentorship program, he was able to develop the prototype and the commercial version of ClinicAgro.  

Ruben Tchounyabe

Agritech investment remains low in Africa despite great successes by some startups. Egyptian agritech startup FreshSource Global announced last February 28 it has secured seed funding to finance its expansion. The B2B platform, which connects farms to businesses in Egypt and provides last-mile solutions, said it has raised an undisclosed “seven-figure” round in dollars from Wamda Capital, 4DX Ventures, and some angel investors.

“We are planning to use the funds to expand our team and invest more in our technology. Also, we are going to be covering all of Egypt’s governorates by the end of 2023. By 2024, we will start considering a global expansion plan,” said co-Founder Farah Emara. She believes the new resources will help "accelerate our mission to create more sustainable fresh food systems through data and technology to transform the lives of producers, businesses and consumers and improve the planet."

FreshSource acts as an intermediary between agricultural producers and businesses such as supermarkets. The company founded in 2018 and launched in 2019 relies on a digital platform through which it centralizes supply from farmers and demand from retailers. It ensures that customers' needs are met by reducing the number of intermediaries through which agricultural products pass. It also ensures the safety of agricultural products, particularly in terms of preservation and transportation to the buyer.

By 2020, FreshSource was already claiming 300 local farmers as users of its service, creating 1,500 jobs and also having prevented 200 tons of food loss. According to Farah Emara, "By reducing food waste, you reduce the cost of fresh food and enable a segment of the population that couldn't afford it before to live a healthier lifestyle. Also, this method increases producers’ income and thus improves their quality of life.”

Adoni Conrad Quenum

Senegalese multiple award-winning agtech startup Tolbi announced plans to raise $500,000 this year to develop its activity. Tolbi, which means field in Wolof, was founded by Mouhamadou Lamine Kébé, a graduate of the Dakar polytechnic school who majored in telecom network systems. Lamine initiated the idea in 2019 with three of his classmates to tackle the water management problems experienced by Senegalese farmers.

Tolbi offers a set of connected objects based on artificial intelligence and edge computing to facilitate field irrigation and improve agricultural yield. "We use drones, satellite imagery, and connected objects with moisture sensors to allow the user to have real-time information about the water and fertilizer needs of their fields. This helps optimize irrigation and improve yield. It makes it possible to reduce water and fuel inputs upstream, thus reducing production costs," Mouhamadou Lamine Kébé explained.

Tolbi’s team of engineers process the data collected by sensors through AI algorithms to extract key information for decision making. The analyzed data is made available to users via dedicated apps to enable them to make a decision. The solution is accessible to all farmers, even those with modest incomes or illiterate, via a mobile phone and a SIM card. All the farmer has to do is dial the device number and interact with a voice command system in Wolof or Pulaar, two languages spoken in Senegal.

"We have succeeded in optimizing agricultural yields by up to 30% while reducing water losses by up to 60%," Lamine Kébé said.  The startup has grown well since its launch and now offers many other services such as plant counting, land shaping, yield estimation, plant health analysis, and weed analysis.

The strong impact Tolbi has on agriculture has earned it several awards including the Grand Prix of the President of the Republic for Digital Innovation in 2020. The startup aims to become a leader in smart agriculture in Africa. For the upcoming year, it plans to enter Nigeria, Kenya, Algeria, and Morocco.

In 2018, agriculture contributed 9.4% to Senegal's GDP, according to the 2020 report of the National Agency for Statistics and Demography (ANSD).

Ruben Tchounyabe

Tunisian AgTech startup Lifeye launched an innovative solution to help farmers in Africa increase their livestock and milk production. The solution was quickly adopted in several countries on the continent.  It is an app (MooMe) downloadable for free on Google play store and Huawei AppGallery.

MooMe was designed in 2019 by three entrepreneurs who wanted to address recurrent problems of cattle farming in Tunisia, such as poor fertility and difficulty in detecting early diseases. The services built into the app will help users better monitor cow calving and fertility, and have full control over their animals, including troublemakers. "The most important thing for a breeder is to know when to do artificial insemination. This data allows us to alert him in advance," explained Ahmed Achballah, one of MooMe’s founders and a graduate in applied sciences.

According to Mohamed Kallel, also co-founder of MooMe, the platform offers accurate data and enables the farmer to quickly detect when something is going wrong with his cattle. The app is linked to a connected cow collar, which is equipped with a small sensor that analyzes the level of rumination and movements to identify diseases such as mastitis or lameness. The collar also helps evaluate the animal's fertility period. MooMe collects data via boxes that are installed in the cowsheds. Once collected, the information is translated into algorithms and spreadsheets that are sent back to the startup's headquarters in Tunis, where the platform to which farmers have access is located.

The connected cow collar is sold for TND200 (€62) with monthly subscription bundles. It was tested on farms in the northwest of Tunisia and provided great results. Lifeye claims 2,500 cows registered in its database and more than 1,500 users in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Senegal, in addition to Tunisia. The company has secured financing, last year, from Maxula Seed Fund to improve its app.

Muriel Edjo