South Africa’s Khula closes $1.3M seed to scale its software-for-agriculture platform
The myriad challenges faced by farmers in Africa — inadequate financing, education and input distribution — persist and greatly affect the agricultural output on the continent. But startups are providing innovative solutions to these problems, and South Africa’s Khula is an example. The startup, launched in 2018, is finding its niche in the ever-growing industry.
Today, it announced a $1.3 million seed round to scale operations across the country.
On the surface, it would seem agritech in Africa hasn’t taken off as exponentially as other tech-operated industries. But it has: The agritech sector grew 44% year-on-year between 2016 and 2019, and the continent has the highest number of agritech services in the developing world, reaching more than 33 million smallholder farmers, according to a report from Farmers Review Africa.