Khula, a South African agri-tech startup announces a $1.4 million seed round
Khula! which has been in a rigorous experimental stage for the past three years, has created an ecosystem comprising three platforms targeted at increasing the efficiency of the agricultural value chain:
The Khula, of course. Farmers may sell products directly to formal market bulk purchasers through the Fresh Produce Marketplace, which is in its final phases of testing, while the Khula! The Funder Dashboard connects institutional investors with farmers who are able to satisfy their financial requirements. Khula! is a brand-new film that was just released. Meanwhile, the Supplies App gives farmers access to authorised agricultural inputs and services from industry leaders.
For most of its pilot, Khula! was self-funded by its creators Karidas Tshintsholo, Matthew Piper, and Jackson Dyora. In June of last year, the company reported the completion of a seed round for ZAR20 million (US$1.4 million). E-Squared Investments joined the round, which was headed by AECI. The public announcement was intentionally postponed, according to the startup, in order to coincide with the Khula! App inputs.
“AECI is exactly the kind of investor we were looking for at this early stage. We did not want an investor at the table who was only going to ask us how we’d performed in a specific quarter, we wanted a long-term partner that would execute with us. A partner with a great reputation in the industry and with an incredible distribution network, a partner whose long term success was tied to a business model like ours. And AECI fits that description perfectly for us,” said Tshintsholo.
