Twiga, a Kenyan e-commerce platform, has raised $50M Series C funding

Twiga, a Kenyan startup, has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round to expand its food solutions across Africa

Twiga, a Kenyan B2B e-commerce platform, has raised $50 million in Series C funding to help it expand its inexpensive food solutions across Africa.

Twiga is a B2B food distribution startup founded in 2014 that uses openness, efficiency, and technology to create fair and trustworthy markets for agricultural farmers and retailers.

The company runs a B2B e-commerce system to streamline the supply chain between fresh food growers, FMCG manufacturers, and retailers. This eliminates the need for many intermediaries, cutting food costs for consumers dramatically.

Twiga is one of the continent’s most well-funded tech startups, having raised US$10.3 million in a Series A round in 2017, another US$10 million in November 2018, US$34.75 million in two rounds in 2019 (see here and here), and US$29.4 million in debt funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) last year.

Creadev, a French investment firm, sponsored a $50 million Series C round for the company. Juven, TLcom Capital, IFC Ventures, and DOB Equity all made large follow-on investments in the round, while OP Finnfund Global Impact Fund I and Endeavor Catalyst Fund participated as new investors.

The transaction also provided an option for select early investors to gain liquidity through a US$30 million secondary sale, which generated up to a 100% annualized return.

“Access to affordable food is a major issue in Africa. The fragmentation of African retail is at the root of this. Twiga is addressing this issue by leveraging technology to create Kenya’s most extensive and low-cost distribution network,” stated Peter Njonjo, Twiga’s CEO and co-founder.

Twiga intends to expand its service to the remainder of East Africa in the following months, followed by West Africa in 2022. It’s also allocating some of the funds to a proof-of-concept project to cultivate its own fresh produce, utilizing precision agriculture and satellite imaging to boost crop yields, with hopes to begin selling the local horticulture commodities across East Africa in February 2022.