Lagos-based Winich Farms has built a digital marketplace connecting over 180,000 smallholder farmers, logistics partners and agricultural produce buyers like small and mid-sized factories. The startup raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the Egyptian venture capital firm DisrupTech Ventures.
The funding is part of Winich’s pre-Series A financing, which opened last year with $3 million in equity and debt from the Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, the Climate Resilient Africa Fund, Plug and Play, Sahel Capital, among others.
Winich secured a grant from the GSMA Agritech Accelerator to strengthen procurement processes via its mobile application.
Embedded finance
To bypass exploitative middlemen, farmers sell their harvest via Winich’s rural collection points and receive their payments within 48 hours. Buyers have access to inventory and stock management services.
Winich has partnered with Nigerian digital lending and payments platform SeedFi to extend produce-collateralized loans, with an initial target of reaching 700 farmers. The startup links farmers to financial institutions that use farmers’ trading records to gauge their creditworthiness.
“Agriculture is also core to Egypt’s economy and we look forward to sharing insights and best practices between both markets as Winich grows across the continent,” said DisrupTech Ventures’ Mohamed Okasha.
Winich wants to scale further across Africa following its expansion into Tanzania last year and is targeting exporting to Europe and the Middle East.
