Apollo raises $40 million in a round led by Softbank, joined by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, CDC
- ByStartupStory | March 21, 2022
Apollo Agriculture, a Kenya-based agritech which helps farmers access high-quality farm inputs, financing and markets, by the end 2022 plans to double the number of farmers it is serving and introduce other products that deliver more value per acre of land. It is after raising about $40 million in Series B funding in the equity round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2.
Apollo uses the satellite imagery data of farms and AI in order to rate the credit-worthiness of farmers. It plans to use the new funding in order to refine its technology and deliver more products and services to the farmers. The startup was launched in 2016 and works with a network of agents, who recruit farmers and retailers to its platform.
While talking about their areas of priority, Apollo Agriculture co-founder and CEO, Eli Pollak, said in a statement that, they are continuing to invest in growing fast; serving more farmers, helping them grow their acreage and really hitting the acceleration on the business. And so across Kenya that’ll be both continued expansion but also expansion into new markets.
For growth opportunities the agritech is scouting in East and West Africa.
Pollak, who co-founded Apollo with Benjamin Njenga and Earl St Sauver, said that they are also continuing to develop products that deliver more value per acre. That could be new crops that enable customers in order to earn more money.
By working Apollo started off with maize farmers but helping them diversify its area of focus to other high-yielding crops.
Apollo had worked with 100,000 farmers by the end of last year, with plans to double the reach by the end of this year. It has a network of retailers of over a thousand and 5,000 agents spread across the country.
While retailers use the startup’s checkout app in order to handle point of sale, inventory, source wholesale orders and as access to trade credit, the agents onboard farmers to the Apollo.
Since the close of a $6 million series A in 2020, Pollak said accelerated by product financing, Apollo has grown 10 times. Over the years for onward lending, the agritech has also received over $16 million in debt-funding.
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