Accelerator Program Awards US$100,000 to Top Agribusiness Firms
2 min readEleven top agribusiness start-up firms in Kenya have been admitted in an accelerator program and given a boost in their work by GIZ Make-IT in Africa closely funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Through an accelerator program being implemented at Strathmore University’s IbizAfrica Incubation Center, the women and youth-led agribusinesses will each wreck in a total of US$100,000 which will go towards scaling their businesses.
In a pool of over 420 applicants, the eleven including IFarm360, SolarFreeze, Shamba Records, Ecodudu, Faina Innovation, Mhogo Foods and Digicows were picked to be among the cohorts for the program launched in July by GIZ Make-IT in Africa on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Others include Mula Exports, Origen Group, Taste Afrique and Fresh pro farms.
The three-month program dubbed Food Africa Accelerator focuses on tackling food security in the county and Africa.
The agri-based start-ups that are in post-revenue thus have sales and customers to sustain business growth through facilitating access to financing, business support and technology adoption.
Aside from sharing the funds provided, the successful businesses will also access Business to Business sales opportunities, ten weeks of intensive business development training, access to a leading network of experts in Agriculture and tailored coaching sessions to address their business needs and mentoring.
Tracy Weru, Program Coordinator for GIZ Make-IT in Africa says that the sponsor partners are looking forward to using the selected start-ups to reduce the number of people currently facing acute insecurity estimated to be 1.3 million people.
The accelerator program is also being implemented by Pangea Accelerator, a Norwegian based accelerator and an investment platform operating in East Africa that matches African start-ups with investors, foundations and development agencies to reach a global scale.
