Ghanaian agri-tech startup AgroCenta has closed a seed round of equity and non-equity funding worth US$650,000 in order to scale its operations.
Founded in 2015, AgroCenta is an online sales solution for smallholder farmers, with two offerings – supply chain platform AgroTrade, and financial inclusion service AgroPay.
The startup was crowned global winner of early-stage pitching competition Seedstars World back in April, and Seedstars is a participant in its seed round of funding, alongside other investors that include Switzerland-based company NP Consulting.
Disrupt Africa reported yesterday AgroCenta was one of six African startups awarded non-equity funding by the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator. Though the startup’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Francis Obirikorang declined to disclose the breakdown of equity versus grant cash, Disrupt Africa can confirm that the GSMA input is worth around US$250,000.
Obirikorang said the funds will be used to scale up AgroCenta’s operations in Ghana, while the GSMA grant is more specifically geared towards the AgroPay platform, which provides any smallholder farmer who has traded using AgroTrade with a financial statement they can use to get access to finance.
