Smallholder Agriculture | June 2, 2021

IDH Farmfit Fund acquires stake in LendXS to expand lending to smallholder farmers

Roodgally Senatus
ImpactAlpha Editor

Roodgally Senatus

ImpactAlpha, June 2 — Approximately 270 million smallholder farmers worldwide live in poverty; few banks are willing to extend them credit due to the high costs and risks.

LendXS, with operations in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cote d’Ivoire, provides rural lenders and other financial institutions with low-cost digital tools for data collection, loan monitoring and credit scoring to help speed loans to small-scale farmers.

Utrecht, Netherlands-based IDH Farmfit Fund has acquired a 21% stake in the agri-fintech.

The partnership will create “a synergy that is expected to unlock access to credit for many farmers,” said Roel Messie of Farmfit Fund, the smallholder finance arm of IDH’s Sustainable Trade Initiative.