Photo Credits: ACDI/VOCA
Over the next three months, the technology-driven agricultural platform provider AgroCenta, an investee company of AV Ventures founded in Ghana in 2015, will participate in a prestigious, U.S.-based business acceleration program for tech startups in the food and agricultural sector. AgroCenta is the sole food tech company selected from the African continent to participate in the Techstars Farm to Fork Class of 2022. Beginning this July, twelve international startups, including AgroCenta, will spend months enhancing their fundraising activities for U.S. investors and growing their businesses before presenting their business models on “demo day” on October 6 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
AV Ventures Portfolio Company Reaches New Heights
AgroCenta is also one of a dozen portfolio companies of the AV Ventures Ghana fund, managed by AV Ventures, a for-profit subsidiary of ACDI/VOCA. AV Ventures provides innovative, catalytic financing to small- and medium-sized enterprises with strong potential for growth and impact in Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America. That means companies like AgroCenta are showing high-growth and high-impact potential and dynamic, entrepreneurial leadership. Portfolio companies benefit from risk-sharing financial products and a growth-enhancing approach to portfolio management.
Building off the foundations and networks developed by ACDI/VOCA, AV Ventures aims to create systemic change through its investments. AV Ventures leverages ACDI/VOCA’s fifty-plus years of experience in the agriculture sector to create financial and impact returns by providing innovative financing and technical assistance to early and growth stage SMEs in emerging markets.
Solving Challenges In The Global Food System
The 2022 class of the accelerator program, supported by Cargill and Ecolab, will be Techstars’ fifth and largest ever. The accelerator first launched in 2018 with aspirations to shine a spotlight on the state of the global food system. Since then, participating companies from around the world have come together to solve problems from labor to sustainability issues.
AgroCenta and its co-founders Francis Obirikorang and Michael K. Ocansey plan to use this opportunity and the support of AV Ventures to expand their role in helping rural smallholder farmers increase their incomes through improved access to markets and digital payments, savings, micro loans, and pensions through AgroCenta’s digital platforms.
