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Africa’s Most Funded Startup to Expand its wings to West Africa After Raising $30M Series B Funding

Kimani Patrick

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Twiga Foods' Co Founder and CEO Mr. Peter-Njonjo

Kenya’s fresh farm food distribution company and Africa’s most funded startup, Twiga Foods, is planning to expand its wings to West Africa – a plan that comes after the startup acquired $30 million funding from lenders and investors led by Goldman Sachs.

In the deal which was inked on Friday and announced on Monday, Twiga Food raised a $6.25 million convertible debt from Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) and the Switzerland-based Alpha Mundi and $23.75 million in equity from Goldman Sachs, The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), private equity firm TLCom Capital and French investment company Creadev.

In a statement, Twiga Foods said “the Series B will fund the continued development of Twiga’s proprietary technology and logistics assets to support the roll-out of its distribution system and lay the foundations for expansion into other cities on the continent.”

“Goldman Sachs is getting a stake and it will be the lead institutional investor in Twiga. It is providing the bulk of the $23.75 million,” said Twiga Foods’ CEO and Co-founder, Peter Njonjo.

The financing will enable the company to expand its operations and geographic footprint as well as continue to develop its proprietary technology platform.

“This funding enables us to invest in our technology and organization to tackle the inefficiencies in Africa’s domestic food production and distribution ecosystems; a $300bn informal and fragmented market that is estimated to grow to $1trn by 2030. With the support of our investors, we are developing technology-driven commercial solutions and cooperating with existing industry players to solve the challenge of food security in Africa,” Peter added.

Reportedly, the company intends to use the funds to set up a distribution center in Nairobi and other cities in Kenya, including Mombasa. Twiga is also targeting Pan-African expansion by third quarter 2020.

“We’re working on French West Africa…we see significant opportunity in those markets,”added Mr Njonjo, adding that the new countries will be named next year.

So far, the agricultural produce startup is the most funded Twiga is one of the best-funded in Africa. In 2017, it raised $10.3m from investors.

In November 2018 Twiga raised another $10m from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), TLcom, and the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme.

Twiga reports that it sends produce from over 17,000 producers to 8,000 vendors thrice a week.

Reportedly, Twiga Foods will use the $30m round to set up a distribution centre in Nairobi and expand to more cities in Kenya.

Kenyan Entrepreneur, Magazine Publisher (@Enterprise_Ke) and CEO for Carlstic | Lead Organiser for the @CEOsBreakfast & NaBLA Awards.

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