Fundraise of African Startups : Kenyan agri-tech startup Taimba, $100k from Gray Matters Capital’s coLABS

Kenyan B2B agri-tech startup Taimba, which operates a mobile-based cashless platform connecting rural smallholder farmers to urban retailers, has raised $100K in funding to strengthen its infrastructure and increase delivery logistics to cater to new markets.

Taimba sources agricultural products directly from farmers and delivers directly to informal greengrocers, schools, hospitals and restaurants within Nairobi, removing the middlemen and shrinking the agricultural value chain.

 

They currently has over 2,000 farmers in their portfolio, and engage with 15 farmer savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) selling products such as potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages and carrots on one side.

On the other side, they have more than 300 customers, and they have now secured funding in order to grow into six more markets in Nairobi.

 

The US$100,000 investment comes from US-based impact investor “Gray Matters Capital” under its gender lens portfolio GMC coLABS.

The funding marks the fourth investment by the impact investor in Africa, after Rwanda’s ARED, Ghana’s Redbird, and Nigeria’s SonoCare.

 

It has also supported Kenya’s MumsVillage and Sierra Leone’s Mosabi as part of its global digital accelerator programme GMC Calibrator, earlier this year.

Dominique Kavuisya, Taimba’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) said as follws;

“This is a validation of the work which we have been doing and the impact on-ground delivering value to vendors and farmers through our mobile platform. The funding is a shot in the arm for us to strengthen our warehouse infrastructure by setting up cold storage facilities and also our delivery logistics so that we can cater to six new markets within Nairobi”.

 

The startup is also planning to pilot in Mombasa and Kisumu by next year and will also look at introducing new products such as fruits, nuts and eggs as part of its farm product catalogue.

 

 

Reference : Disrupt Africa

http://disrupt-africa.com/2019/07/kenyan-agri-tech-startup-taimba-raises-100k-from-gray-matters-capitals-colabs/