NAIROBI (KENYA), 28th October, 2021:
Seedstars Africa Ventures and Gray Matters Capital have announced leading a funding round
of $ 1.1 million to Nairobi (Kenya) based Shamba Pride, a one-stop online-to-offline platform
that connects smallholder farmers to quality inputs, services, and information through women
and youth owned DigiShops powered by technology.
The funding is aimed at supporting Shamba Pride’s national expansion and roll-out of its digital
solution to over 1,000 digitalized shops. This will allow the company to empower hundreds of
thousands of smallholder farmers to boost their income and productivity through increased
access to better quality inputs, education, financial services and market linkages.
The round was signed in the presence of Kenyan Cabinet Secretary Betty Maina and French
Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade Franck Riester, KEMSA representatives and a series of
international agricultural corporates, reflecting a common ambition to transform the Kenyan
agricultural sector through innovation.
Shamba Pride Mission to Free Africa From Hunger and Poverty Through
Empowering Rural Farmers to Increase Income and Opportunities Gets New
Backing
“Shamba Pride is revolutionizing rural distribution systems for African farmers by
transforming from traditional and informal systems to modern trade. Through Shamba Pride,
existing last-mile agro dealer entrepreneurs are able to digitalize their operations and provide
smallholder farmers with right and affordable technology, quality products and services. The
model establishes a network of smart micro-entrepreneurs serving the smallholder farmer
community, allowing farmers to increase their farm productivity, sustain their employment and
their household income,” said CEO and Founder Samuel Munguti.
Speaking about the funding, Samuel Munguti, added , “we are excited to have Seedstars Africa
Ventures and Gray Matters Capital join the Shamba Pride family. Our momentum to
revolutionize last mile distribution systems for African farmers has gained new momentum. The
investment will propel our national growth to service hundreds of thousands of smallholder
farmers while creating a reliable community of smart microentreprenuers offering improved
services to farmers”
Maxime Bouan, Partner at Seedstars Africa Ventures said “Talented African early stage
entrepreneurs continue to lack funding despite providing tangible adapted solutions. We are
convinced Shamba Pride’s online-to-offline model is perfectly suited to tap into a huge market
opportunity by upskilling existing value chains and finally offering farmers the quality
counterparts they deserve. Beyond capital, we will continue to actively support the company
through additional market linkages and corporate partnerships within Africa and beyond to
guarantee farmers obtain the best value.”
About GMC coLABS
GMC coLABS is an early-stage investment portfolio seeking to invest in innovative and
scalable for-profit enterprises that have the potential to dramatically improve the lives of
women and girls around the world. Launched in 2018, investment portfolio of impact investor
Gray Matters Capital (GMC) has committed $5 million over the next 3 years to help early-stage
entrepreneurs with seed capital and strategic advisory support to scale their enterprises. GMC
coLABS has so far invested in a diverse portfolio of companies across sectors ranging from
civic engagement, to health, to livelihoods spanning 4 continents. The investment ticket size is
up to $250,000 per enterprise.
To know more about coLABS, visit https://gmccolabs.com/
About Seedstars Africa Ventures
Seedstars Africa Ventures is a pan-African early stage venture capital fund positioned as the
missing link between seed investors (e.g. business angels, accelerators and seed funds) and later
stage investors (growth capital and private equity). The fund supports value creation with
hands-on support, by leveraging Seedstars’ network in 25 African countries and 10-years
acceleration experience on the Continent, as well as by fostering partnership opportunities with
its corporate partners.
More information available at http://seedstars-africa.vc
Contact : contact@seedstars-africa.vc
About Shamba Pride
Shamba Pride is a high growth Kenyan social enterprise offering last mile online-to-offline
marketplace platform that connects village level farmers to relevant information, quality
inputs and credible agriculture service providers in local community through leveraging on
technology and franchising to improve capacity of women and youth owned agro-dealer
stores to ensure increased farm production and improved family income and food security.
Shamba Pride DigiShop platform creates new agriculture opportunities to last mile farmers
to access trusted and dependable information, inputs and services. To know more about
Shamba Pride, visit https://shambapride.com/
For Shamba Pride
Samuel Munguti
E: samuel.munguti@shambapride.com