By allowing farmers access to technologies and adequate markets, he helps solve some of the key challenges facing Africa. Some of those challenges include food security, poverty, and unemployment.

Karidas Tshintsholo (photo) is the founder and CEO of Khula, a South African startup that provides a marketplace and software for farmers to grow their businesses.  

The tech entrepreneur attended Ekangala Comprehensive High School from 2008 to 2012. He then studied business at the University of Cape Town from 2013 to 2015. Soon after that, in 2017, he founded Khula with Matthew Piper and Jackson Dyora. 

His startup aims to provide a support ecosystem connecting farmers with buyers, technical services, financing, and inputs across Africa. 

Khula’s digital platform is not only a fresh produce marketplace where farmers can list their products and buyers can place orders. It also serves as an input marketplace where growers can buy seeds, fertilizers, pesticides... from verified suppliers. Khula is also a traders' platform, where traders can source products from farmers and sell them to buyers. It offers a dashboard, where farmers can access financing options from a variety of lenders. 

With over 100 suppliers, more than 130 warehouses, and more than 190 agricultural advisors in South Africa, it offers more than 3,000 products from local and international suppliers and can deliver to every province and major agricultural region in its origin country.  Karidas Tshintsholo, the CEO who oversees its operations, is a member of the Southern Africa Council of the International Fresh Produce Association, an association representing companies in the global fresh produce and floral supply chain. 

In 2013, the tech entrepreneur co-founded MoneyTree Group, a media, publishing, and marketing company focused on youth and emerging markets/segments of the economy. Till 2017, he served as the executive director of that company.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the executive project manager of Investor Games, a gamified investing training platform created by Investment Society (InvestSoc.), the South African NGO that provides “holistic, business-focused practical education at every major tertiary institution in South Africa.”

Karidas Tshintsholo has received awards throughout his entrepreneurial journey. In 2015, he became a fellow of the Anzisha Prize, a fellowship of which he has been a member of the advisory board since 2021.  In 2019, he was named among the Forbes Africa 30 Under 30. 

Melchior Koba