In about eight years, he succeeded in making Farmerline a choice partner for Ghanaian smallholder farmers. His ambition is to do the same in the whole of Africa in the coming years.

Ghanaian entrepreneur Alloysius Attah (photo, left) is the co-founder and CEO of AgTech Farmerline. Co-founded in 2013 with Emmanuel Owusu Addai (photo, left), his startup supports farmers’ growth and performance with a combination of digital and logistics tools. It specifically improves farmers’ access to market information, farm inputs, and funds. 

The tech entrepreneur graduated from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in 2012, with a BSc in Natural Resource Management.  In 2021, he obtained the Standford Seed Transformation Program Certificate from the Standford University Graduate School of Business. 

Thanks to Farmerline, Alloysius Attah was one of the seven finalists for the 2014 Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards. In 2015, he was a guest lecturer at the Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellows Program, Cornell University, New York. The same year, his dynamism secured Farmerline a spot in the European Union’s CTA Top 20 Innovations that Benefit Smallholder Farmers. In November 2021, the young entrepreneur was one of the speakers invited to the  Bloomberg New Economy Forum organized under the theme “Feeding the World: Agriculture and the Health of the Planet.” 

In about eight years, he succeeded in making Farmerline a choice partner for Ghanaian smallholder farmers. His ambition is to do the same in the whole of Africa in the coming years. For that purpose, in April 2022, he secured US$12.9 million in pre-Series A funding. US$6.4 million was invested by Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, Greater Impact Foundation, and Dutch Development Bank FMO. The remaining US$6.5 million was secured as debt participation from DEG, Rabobank, Ceniarth, Rippleworks, Mulago Foundation, Whole Planet Foundation, Netri Foundation, and Kiva. 

“With this new investment, we will scale the AI capabilities within Farmerline’s Mergdata platform to help increase the income of farmers and agribusinesses; supporting them to access farm inputs; supplying them with assets such as tricycles, tractors, and threshers; and connecting them to global markets,” Mr. Attah said. The startup also plans to deepen its relations with Ivorian partners. 

Melchior Koba