Seedstars Africa Ventures and Gray Matters Capital have announced leading a funding round of $ 1.1 million (Ksh123 million) to Nairobi-based Shamba Pride, a one-stop online-to-offline platform that connects smallholder farmers to quality inputs, services, and information through women and youth-owned DigiShops powered by technology.
The funding is aimed at supporting Shamba Pride’s national expansion and roll-out of its digital solution to over 1,000 digitalized shops. This will allow the company to empower hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers to boost their income and productivity through increased access to better quality inputs, information, financial services and market linkages.
“Shamba Pride is revolutionizing rural distribution systems for African farmers by transforming from traditional and informal systems to modern trade. Through Shamba Pride, existing last-mile agro entrepreneurs are able to digitalize their operations and provide smallholder farmers with right and affordable technology, quality products and services. The model establishes a network of smart micro-entrepreneurs serving the smallholder farmer community, allowing farmers to increase their farm productivity, sustain their employment and their household income,” said CEO and Founder Samuel Munguti.