FarmWorks, an agricultural technology company, has recently completed a Pre-A round of financing of USD 4 million.
FarmWorks is an agricultural technology service provider established at the end of 2020, headquartered in Kenya, an African country. The company focuses on the application of advanced planting technologies, and signs contract planting agreements with local small farmers, providing them with agricultural raw materials such as seeds and fertilizers. The company also provides standardized spraying services. In addition, FarmWorks is involved in the back-end acquisition and sales of crops.
In Africa, agricultural demand is highly significant. The region faces many challenges, such as the rapidly growing population, degraded farmland due to climate change, malnutrition rates well above the world average, and dependence on imports for more than 50 percent of basic food. Together, these factors characterize African agriculture and drive a huge demand for high-yielding, cost-effective, and climate-resilient agricultural technologies.
So far, FarmWorks has established partnerships with more than 3,500 farmers and established more than 50 farmer field schools locally. The company has opened 18 branches in the region, delivering more than 20 tons of fresh produce every day, and achieved a cost of 17% lower than the average level and a loss rate of 25% lower than the average level during the distribution process.
Co-founder Li Yi (李奕), a Chinese girl born in the 1990s, previously worked for global consulting firm Mackenzie in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, and she described the transition to entrepreneurship as "from 30,000 feet to the field."
In addition to FarmWorks, several companies are competing in the agricultural tech market. The representative companies in China include Qi Biodesign (齐禾生科), XAIRCRAFT (极飞科技), LIAND (博创联动), and AIKENONG (爱科农); internationally, Indigo in the United States, Apollo Agriculture in Kenya, Infarm in Germany, RAW Pressery in India, and Prospera Technologies in Israel are quite powerful.
This round of financing for FarmWorks is led by ARAF (The Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund), which mainly invests in agriculture, and followed by VestedWorld and Livelihood Impact Fund. This round of funds will be used to improve the supply chain system, strengthen the talent team, and technology research and development.