The new funding secured six months after the agritech startup's last financing round brings the total funds it raised to US$14.4 million, including US$6.5 million in debt financing. 

Ghanaian agritech startup Farmerline announced, Tuesday (September 27), the second close of its Pre-Series A investment raise. During that round, it raised US$1.5 million from social impact investor Oikocredit.

According to Farmerline co-founder and CEO, Alloysius Attah, the round will help support farmers and agribusinesses across Africa in a context marked by the war in Ukraine. “With the support of Oikocredit alongside our first-round funders, our distribution, logistics, and financing services will continue not only in Ghana but also in Côte d’Ivoire where we’ve recently begun the process of expanding our team,” he said.

West Africa was recovering from the coronavirus pandemic when the Ukraine war began. Record inflationary pressures ensued, sending the cost of living flying in most African countries.  According to Issoufou Baoua, an expert food security analyst with the Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), the number of people threatened by food insecurity in the Sahel and West Africa is rising. “We have gone from 10.7 million people threatened by food insecurity in 2019 to 40.7 million in 2022,” he says.   

By expanding its African footprint, Farmerline will strengthen its agribusiness supply chain, cut costs for farmers and boost yield with the deployment of AI solutions and local infrastructure.  

The startup, founded in 2013, currently claims about US$18 million worth of inputs and crops financed so far by franchising with agribusinesses and input resellers.   The startup now aims to reach 300,000 farmers by 2022, a nearly 400% growth from last year, when it doubled its direct reach to 79,000 farmers (from 36,000 in 2020 and 8,000 in 2019). 

Samira Njoya