Food security. It’s a challenge in many parts of the world, especially as global supply chains break down and environmental imbalances leave lands barren. The Ugandan tech company Inputi is improving the odds in its region with funding from Renew Capital, an impact investment firm growing small and medium-sized businesses in East Africa through its network of impact investors, Renew Capital Angels.
Inputi is an online marketplace, aggregator and distributor for farm inputs. Through versatile digital platforms, it delivers quality crop and livestock inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides to 1,000 rural agro shops, 20 dairy cooperatives and 12 meat cooperatives, sending them directly to buyers or to regional agro and vet shops at a fixed transportation cost. Inputi is projecting 50% growth in the coming year and, with the Renew Capital investment, it hopes to profile and aggregate input dealers, farmers and farmer groups to provide linkages in trade and to financial institutions and insurance firms.
“We cannot eliminate famine caused by climate change, but we can mitigate that by improving food distribution systems,” says Inputi chief executive officer David Lukwago. “The private sector plays a critical role in building efficient, effective and sustainable means to move food from one point to another point where the food is needed.”
“We are excited about the end-to-end value chain connectivity solution for crop and livestock farmers that Inputi is building. This solution delivers agri inputs to the farmer at an affordable cost while providing farmer-centric training to create a thriving agricultural ecosystem sustainably,” says Renew Capital Head of Shared Growth Services JC Oelofse.