Ghanaian startup Landmapp has rebranded as Meridia as it expands operations having already seen significant success mapping and documenting smallholder farming land.
Formed in 2015, Landmapp offers a mobile platform that provides smallholder farmer families with documentation of their land.
The startup offers farmers products that are fully compliant with Ghanaian regulations and customary traditions, grant a high level of legal security, and can be used as collateral for accessing agricultural loans.
In February of last year the company raised an undisclosed funding round from Omidyar Network to help it grow its customer base, and it has so far sold 4,500 documents and mapped 20,000 hectares.
The startup has now rebranded as Meridia, though co-founders Thomas Vaassen and Simon Ulvund said nothing else had changed about the business itself.
“You may have noticed the name Landmapp has disappeared. Same team, new name, new era,” they said.
“We have been busy with our main delivery season, bringing documents to thousands of clients and also working on our flashy new brand.”
Vaassen and Ulvund said Meridia combines technological tools and on-the-ground expertise to unlock land potential.
“From digitally mapping boundaries and validating legal documents to helping secure ownership, we bring much-needed transparency and clarity to the communities that need it most,” they said.
“We’re on a mission to make the equitable distribution and use of land accessible to all. Not just one-off solutions, but a full-service approach that plays specifically into each community’s continuously changing needs.”
The startup has spent the last three months working on its document delivery model, whereby customers pay it in full and Meridia hands over their land document.
“First it felt like debt collection – until we flipped the whole experience and made it a land document celebration in each village, with prizes, singing and dancing. Then deliveries skyrocketed and we seem to have found our formula. From here on out it’s all about growth,” the co-founders said.
