Village Capital’s Agriculture Africa 2019 Accelerator is focused on solutions that improve outcomes for small farmers and address food security issues.
A few noteworthy things:
- Our partners this year are Small Foundation and Ceniarth. Ceniarth has committed $100K to the top two peer-selected ventures.
- For the first time, we have a Zambian company in a Village Capital cohort.
- For the first time, we have high representation from Uganda (three out of nine ventures)
Below is the original problem statement that we used for the application, and the full cohort list.
Original problem statement
In recent years several African governments have established initiatives to support agriculture, such as the Maputo Declaration, the adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Africa’s Agenda 2063. While these are important, they all represent high-level solutions, and there is still a need for granular solutions to help smallholder farmers.
At Village Capital, we believe agriculture entrepreneurs can address these gaps. Entrepreneurs have the potential to raise productivity for small farmers, increase food security, improve and secure the value chain, and strengthen links to markets, all while generating job growth and local economic development.
Village Capital is launching its Agriculture Africa 2019 program with the support of Ceniarth and Small Foundation. We welcome ventures meeting any of the following criteria listed below:
- Enterprises that solve agri-value chain problems end-to-end (or come close),
- Enterprises that employ technology in delivering products and/or services,
- Ventures that work across multiple commodities,
- Companies that leverage social networks in delivering their product and services,
- Urban agriculture, aquaculture, and hardware businesses,
Full cohort for Village Capital Agriculture Africa 2019
Akellobanker enables farmers to access, order for and share farm extension workers, inputs, tools and equipment on credit, from verified service providers
AywaJieune is an online platform for fish products. It allows fishermen to sell their products easily to consumers, restaurants and hotels which benefit from easier access to the market and competitive prices
Capture Solutions provides unique B2B ICT applications to companies and organizations that need to re-organize and streamline their working processes
Complete Farmer is an end-to-end digital agriculture platform that makes it easy for industries to source quality food raw materials and convenient for anyone anywhere to own a farm
eMsika helps farmers find, buy, and receive farm inputs and advisory services from the comfort of their farms
Raino Tech4Impact empowers African communities by promoting sustainable agriculture leveraging on technology, data and innovative business models
ReelFruit is the largest dried fruit processing company in Nigeria, retailing a range of six unique dried fruit and nut snacks to a wide variety of customers including over 250 supermarkets nationwide, airlines, hotels, schools and on Amazon.com.
Volta Irrigation is an environmentally restorative social enterprise that aims to unlock the productivity potential for smallholder farmers through the provision of affordable and accessible irrigation services