Kenyan agritech startup, iProcure expands into Tanzania
Kenya-based iProcure has announced its expansion into Tanzania through its partnership with the Farm to Market Alliance.
After raising a $10.2 million Series B last year, Kenyan agritech startup, iProcure said it will support its expansion into Uganda and Tanzania as well as its launch of a credit offering for agro-retailers to purchase supplies on credit.
As part of the East African expansion drive, iProcure today announced that it is expanding into Tanzania through its partnership with the Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA). "iProcure has had its sights set on Tanzania and this partnership with FtMA presents the perfect opportunity to roll out our technology to an established network of agro-dealers. FtMA shares our vision of digitizing agriculture, helping farmers, and improving supply chains, so we are excited to enter this new market alongside them," Niraj Varia, iProcure's CEO, said.
The company has started expanding to Uganda by installing the Point of Sale platform at the agro-dealers within the country.
FtMA is a consortium of public and private institutions that aims to increase income and strengthen the resilience of smallholders while simultaneously increasing commercial viability for all value chain stakeholders.
This is done through FtMA's support to a network of last-mile service providers called Farmer Service Centres (FSCs) which act as key service hubs that provide access to demand-driven services such as quality inputs, weather and planting advisory information, affordable financing, handling and storage solutions, as well as timely market connections, thereby guiding producers' transition from having a surplus or surplus potential to commercial farming.
The partnership between iProcure and FtMA will improve access to supplies and services for over 125,000 farmers in Tanzania.
FtMA offers a platform to provide last-mile service delivery and structured market access to 125,000 farmers in rural Tanzania through its network of 295 Farmer Service Centers spread across six regions. The services offered include market access, farm inputs, financing, mechanization, advisory services, and insurance.
"FtMA is excited about the partnership with iProcure in Tanzania. At our core, FtMA seeks to bridge the gap between service delivery and market access at the first and last mile," Mads Lofvall, Managing Director of FtMA said. "Digitalizing the work of our Farmer Service Centers is key to bridging this gap, and we are looking forward to seeing how our FSCs and farmers will benefit from this new partnership."
Through this collaboration, iProcure will deploy its supply-chain tracking technology and business management software solutions to 100 Tanzanian agro-dealers to enhance their operational efficiency and supply traceability. The partnership aims to deploy iProcure solutions to 100 FtMA Farmer Service Centers by November 2023.
The Kenyan agritech startup has revolutionized traditional agricultural supply chains in East Africa by developing its own distribution infrastructure connecting major agricultural input suppliers directly to local agro-dealers via its proprietary distribution technology system.
By cutting out the multiple levels of middlemen in the traditional agricultural supply chain and providing technology-driven insights on supply levels and price, iProcure ensures the availability, quality, and delivery of critical agricultural inputs like fertilizers and seeds while delivering savings. Agrodealers, in turn, can provide the farmers that depend on them with the products they need when they need them.
In addition to procuring and delivering supply to over one million farmers, iProcure’s software and data management solutions digitize agro-dealers businesses and provide invaluable data insight into regional agricultural input demand, price sensitivity, and creditworthiness. iProcure has used this insight to extend Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) services to over 1,500 agro-dealers.
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