Twiga Foods Raises Kshs 3 Billion Series B Round for Africa Expansion

Twiga Foods, the B2B food distribution company has raised a total of $30 million (Kshs 3 billion) in a Series B round.

The company raised $23.75 million led by Goldman Sachs and other investors including the International Finance Corporation, TLcom Capital and Creadev. An additional $6 million was raised from OPIC and Alpha Mundi.

The money will be used to fund the development of their proprietary technology and logistics assets to support the rollout of its distribution system. It will also be used to lay foundation for expansion into other cities on the continent (Africa).

It seems Twiga has its sights to scale to the African continent which has huge potential. “This funding enables us to invest in our technology and organization to tackle inefficiencies in Africa’s domestic food production and distribution ecosystems, a $300 billion informal and fragmented market that is estimated to grow to $1 trillion by 2030,” Peter Njonjo, Twiga Foods CEO and Co-Founder said.

Twiga Foods is no stranger to venture capital funding. They received a $10 million investment from IFC last year and in 2017, they raised $10.3 million Series A funding that was led by Wamda Capital, Omidyar Network and more.

Twiga Foods was launched in Nairobi 5 years ago and now they source fresh produce from more than 17,000 producers and delivering 3 times a week on average to over 8,000 retailers. Their platforms links retailers with farmers and food manufacturers so that they can have a reliable alternative to the inefficient and expensive farm to factory processes. They pay farmers within 48 hours with mobile money.

According to the company, through investment in its supply chain and material handling, Twitter has apparently reduced their level of food waste by upto 70% compared to  market averages.