AgriFI -the EU Agriculture Financing Initiative- and Seedstars Africa Ventures announce a strategic investment of USD 3.7 million in Shamba Pride, a pioneering Agri SME based in Kenya.
As part of the arrangement, Agrifi will provide a long term loan of $2 million, to foster sustainable development and economic growth in developing countries. Seedstars Africa Ventures, investor since 2021, has committed an additional $1.7 million in equity, reaffirming its support to the company and catalysing investments into the company from international funds.
Shamba Pride addresses the crucial challenge of providing quality and affordable agricultural inputs, services, and information to smallholders in rural areas. Known for its innovative approach, the company has built a platform empowering last-mile agro-dealer shops, or agrovets, with digital services, namely enabling easy online ordering and purchase with weekly doorstep delivery of supplies, reducing out of stock situations. This model not only allows the creation of new jobs, but it also provides access to agricultural inputs for smallholder farmers in remote rural areas at more affordable prices.
Shamba Pride CEO Samuel Munguti explained: “AgriFI joined this growth journey through an investment that propels Shamba Pride towards its vision of positively impacting the lives of some 200,000 farmers by the end of 2025. The company has already grown its outreach by 10x since 2021 to reach over 220 shops, and the additional equity investment from Seedstars Africa Ventures alongside a trusted institutional financial institution is a significant milestone for the company to become a regional champion and a trusted brand for the industry.”
Rodrigo Madrazo, Chief Executive Officer of EDFI Management Company, stressed the transformative outcome brought by the investment, noting: “Support for Shamba Pride reflects our commitment to empowering entrepreneurship in frontier markets, with a high impact felt in rural areas. By providing appropriate long-term debt alongside additional equity investment, EDFI AgriFI is poised to play a pivotal role to help scale up Shamba Pride operations.”
“Shamba Pride’s success is based on innovations which facilitate the day-to-day farming activities. We’ve been proud to support a scalable model which creates additional revenues for farmers and agrovets and strongly contributes to successful women entrepreneurship”, noted Maxime Bouan General Partner at Seedstars Africa Ventures, adding that the company would now grow to new heights and scale with larger corporate partnerships.
The investment aims to support Shamba Pride as it expands current activities in Kenya and develops additional services. The financing will enable the company to develop its franchise network and benefit from additional working capital to source agri inputs in bulk, which both will increase the impact in rural areas.
Robin Boereboom, AgriFI Senior Investment Officer, EDFI Management Company, added: “Samuel Munguti, a Kenyan entrepreneur, applied his experience in supply chain and marketing within fast-moving consumer goods companies to disrupt the local agri inputs’ sector. We’re excited to support a locally grown and innovative digital initiative that is revolutionizing the agri input ecosystem in rural areas, with significant benefits for both agrovets and farmers.”
Yvonne Chileshe, OACPS Expert on Value Chains from ACP Regional Window, expressed optimism, stating: “This investment showcases the need for strategic collaborations and financial support in advancing sustainable agriculture in developing countries. Shamba Pride allows the creation of a community of smart micro-entrepreneurs -most of them women and youth led- serving the smallholder famer community. Thus, the growth of the company aligns with our goals to foster inclusive development.”
About EDFI AgriFI
EDFI AgriFI, the EU Agriculture Financing Initiative, is an impact investment facility funded by the European Union, with a mandate to unlock, accelerate and leverage sustainable investments in medium, small and micro agri-enterprises (MSME) that operate in developing countries, with a specific focus on smallholder’s inclusiveness. AgriFI is managed by EDFI Management Company on behalf of the 15 European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI).
About EDFI AgriFI – Regional Window for ACP countries
EDFI AgriFI – Regional Window for ACP countries, is a dedicated investment window within EDFI-AgriFI allocated to invest in entities operating specific agriculture value chains in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. For more information, visit https://www.businessacp.com and https://www.oacps.org/
About Seedstars Africa Ventures
Seedstars Africa Ventures I is a generalist early stage venture capital fund investing initial amounts up to USD 2mn in Seed+ / Series A companies and able to reinvest up to USD 5mn. The fund invests and actively supports companies throughout Africa with extensive presence across the continent. The fund was created in partnership with Seedstars, the leading emerging markets accelerator and with LBO France, a multi-specialist and multi-country investment platform.
About Shamba pride
Shamba Pride is a high growth Kenyan company offering last mile online-to-offline marketplace platform that connects village level farmers to relevant information, quality inputs and credible agriculture service providers in local community through leveraging on
technology and franchising to improve capacity of women and youth owned agro-dealer stores to ensure increased farm production and improved family income and food security. Shamba Pride DigiShop platform creates new agriculture opportunities to last mile farmers
to access trusted and dependable information, inputs and services. To know more about Shamba Pride, visit https://shambapride.com/
This article was originally published by: EDFI
