Senegalese tea start-up Contanna wins $25k in AgriPitch competitors

Contanna, a web based  luxurious tea merchandise platform has bagged $25k on the The 2022 AgriPitch competitors .Contanna was based by Adja Sembene Fall, a Senegalese feminine founder who begun her entrepreneurial journey on the age of 14, promoting contemporary fruit throughout lunch time to excessive faculty college students. She later ventured into tea enterprise impressed by the chance and hardship tea entrepreneurs face when attempting to promote their tea leaves late at evening earlier than they spoil.  

Because of monetary constraints  it was not attainable for Adja to discover a bodily store. Her firm was began out within the yard of her brother’s home the place her tea merchandise had been offered on social media for 3 years.

“Digitising our purchasing course of was actually vital. We had been additionally in a position to current and modify packaging of our product on-line, to emphasise it was premium and totally different from what was out there in Senegal.”

The corporate centered on Instagram and its web site which enabled her to boost $5 000 in on-line gross sales within the first 12 months of operation. The enterprise then expanded reaching  $12 000 in gross sales, therefore establishing a neighborhood of round 2 000 shoppers.

Just lately the startup opened a pop-up stall at Dakar’s Sea Plaza shopping center, and it additionally gained the African Growth Financial institution’s AgriPitch competitors which helps African youth agripreneurs by bettering their enterprise bankability and making certain that they’re “pitch prepared” for potential traders.

The 2022 version obtained almost 750 full purposes from entrepreneurs within the agriculture sector out of which 25 semi-finalists, 68% of them women-owned or led companies had been chosen to attend a two-week enterprise growth digital boot camp. The bootcamp culminated in a pitch session to judges, who selected 9 agripreneurs to advance to the finals.

Adja ,the founding father of Contanna Tea obtained $25 000 because the winner within the AgriPitch competitors’s women-owned enterprise class.

Contanna’s tea merchandise are about greater than style. They promote a “Senegalese expertise” that promotes a women-owned, 100% regionally sourced and processed product based mostly on recipes infusing household and cultural traditions.

“African youth have nice concepts. It was thrilling to see the excessive stage of innovation and keenness from these younger agripreneurs, notably the massive variety of women-owned enterprises like Contanna,” mentioned Edson Mpyisi, the financial institution’s chief monetary economist and ENABLE Youth coordinator.

Adja says she’ll use a part of the prize cash to improve a digital fee system and for computer systems and digital abilities coaching for Contanna workers, all girls.

Contanna and different competitors finalists will retain entry to the AgriPitch “deal room” to avail of post-competition digital experience, enterprise growth, and investor engagement.

The 2022 AgriPitch competitors’s winners and runners-up included:

Early start-ups class: Etoduma SARL from Cote d’Ívoire obtained $25 000 because the winner. The primary runner-up, Agrisiti from Maatalous Nasah in Nigeria, gained $15 000. 

Girls-owned or -led class: This class was gained by Adja Sembene Fall’s Contanna firm. The primary runner-up was Legendary Meals in Ghana who walked away with $15 000.

Mature start-ups class: The winner was Minagro Group from Togo who gained $40 000. The primary runner-up was Faso Elevage from Burkina Faso who obtained $20 000.

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