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Kenyan start-up Twiga Foods gains $50M in Series C round

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2 min read
AUTHOR: Fiona Holland
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Food market

Kenya’s e-commerce app Twiga Foods recently secured $50M to improve supply chains in East Africa and other nearby countries through their digital platform.

This recent round was led by private equity firm Creadev, with other investors such as TLcom Capital and IFC Ventures also taking part. Twiga already raised $30 million in a Series B round in 2019, which was led by the American investment group Goldman Sachs.

The start-up was founded in 2013 after a realisation that Africans were spending nearly ten times more of their disposable income on food in comparison to markets in the developed world.

According to Twiga, approximately 90% of the retail industry in Africa is made up of informal, independent retailers, in comparison to the USA where the development of a more efficient supply chain has now meant the average consumer spends around 6% of their disposable income on food.

The company aims to improve food distribution in Kenya by bringing together retailers and farmers through an online app to increase the range of produce available.

Since 2019, Twiga then started to link up FMCGs and manufacturers with retailers in the country to help increase profit.

Once the company collect goods from the farms, farmers are paid through the online money platform M-Pesa in the following 24 hours. Vendors place their order with a sales representative through the business’s app, and then the produce is distributed through Twiga’s own vehicles for free within 24 hours.

The company uses a geographic information system mapping within their platform to plan the delivery route, taking account of road conditions and location to work out how best to deliver the ordered produce.

Pierre Fauvet, Africa director at Creadev said in a statement: “We are deeply convinced in Twiga’s potential to revolutionize informal retail across Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Tapping into a $77 billion urban market on the continent, Twiga has gained significant traction since inception, leveraging on technology to optimize the food supply chain in African cities and constantly innovating to better tackle logistics, commercial, social and environmental challenges.”

According to How we made it in Africa, The B2B company has said they are the largest buyer of fresh produce in the country bringing more than 4,000 farmers and 35,000 shopkeepers together through their online service.

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