Commonplace Chatered’s SC Ventures launches Agritech Market for Smallholder Farmers in Kenya

SC Ventures, the fintech, funding and ventures arm of Commonplace Chartered, has launched Kenya-based Tawi, a B2B agritech market for safe e-commerce transactions for smallholder farmers in Kenya. Tawi goals to supply farmers with a viable and constant market, worth transparency and environment friendly provide chain administration.

“Tawi will join our farmers to an estimated KES 200 billion (US$1.6 billion) market alternative,” stated Cherotich Rutto, founder and CEO of Tawi. “By this platform, farmers will earn extra for his or her produce whereas additionally enhancing the supply-chain effectivity of high-quality produce to business shoppers. We’re doing this by aggregating demand and simplifying the method for promoting and shopping for recent produce at a business scale.”

Tawi goals to assist farmers enhance crop high quality, scale and make the meals and agriculture worth chain extra sustainable. The platform will supply recent produce immediately from farmers. In step with selling variety and inclusion, Tawi will make sure that no less than 25 per cent of the farmers it companions with are ladies and youth.

SC Ventures helps Kenyan farmers

SC Ventures began incubating Tawi in 2022 to handle a few of the smallholder farmers’ challenges, corresponding to lack of viable marketplaces, which resulted in post-harvest losses. Different challenges that Tawi is tackling embrace poor high quality produce, fragmented provide chains resulting from inappropriate infrastructure and too many middlemen. Since Tawi began testing the platform in February, it has onboarded over 1,000 farmers, 250 business kitchens and fulfilled over 1000 deliveries.

The agritech platform is beginning off by supplying business kitchens, which symbolize round US$210 million (KES 28 billion) in constant and predictable market alternative.

Industrial kitchens can order recent produce immediately on the platform and Tawi’s logistic group will gather the produce from the farm and ship inside 12 to 18 hours. By enhancing supply effectivity, business kitchens can even use the produce for longer and cut back meals wastage.

“We’re delighted for the launch of Tawi, a fintech that understands agriculture is greater than only a enterprise—it’s a lifestyle, rooted in group, laborious work, and dedication,” stated Jiten Arora, Member, SC Ventures. “Like SC Ventures, Tawi believes within the energy of partnerships to drive success and progress for companions and enterprise.”

Tawi has adopted a phased strategy to constructing its market and enterprise mannequin. Sooner or later, Tawi plans to embed monetary companies together with loans and micro-insurance, and value-added companies together with providing agronomic help for finest agricultural practices.

“At SC Ventures, we incubate new enterprise fashions, new ventures with the ambition to rewire the DNA in banking to unravel real-world issues. We’re proud to have incubated Tawi, which is able to assist rework and make the agriculture and meals worth chain extra sustainable from farm to fork,” stated Alex Manson, Member, SC Ventures. “Tawi is a welcomed addition to SC Ventures’ ecosystem. We stay up for exploring extra methods of enhancing monetary inclusions for farmers in Kenya and past.”

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