FarmDrive, a platform that delivers digital loans and savings products to smallholder farmers in Kenya which eventually helps them grow their income and flexibility has acquired more financing with which to provide credit access to over 3 million smallholder farmers in Kenya.
The startup used a combination of agriculturally relevant data, Know Your Customer (KYC) data, and advanced behavioral analytics, to develop a proprietary lending engine to extend loans to these smallholder farmers. Having previously raised funding from the likes of Safaricom and EWB Canada, they have now secured further investment. EWB Canada is again involved in the round, which also includes AK Impact Investors, 1 to 4 Foundation, ADAP Seed Fund 2, The Lakes Charitable Foundation and Sunu Capital.
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This investment will allow FarmDrive scale up to 13 million USD of loan origination with minimal exceptional returns and losses using RiPe. This is a customizable lending engine that will allow lenders to plug in and access low-cost loan origination channels such as USSD, credit scoring, identity verification, and a portfolio management suite that includes recovery and collections, payments, customer support and advanced real time data analytics.
Elena Haba, acting director of investments at EWB Canada said FarmDrive has the tendency to divert market attention and bridge the credit gap between creditors and underserved small business owners like smallholder farmers. “We believe that addressing this credit accessibility issue is a seminal first step towards building more inclusive and sustainable economies,” she said.
This is a good platform for smallholder farmers to thrive in Kenya
