Launched in March 2018, Kitovu builds climate smart farming and post harvest infrastructure for African agriculture, which provides smallholder farmers with decision support and access to tools and resources that optimize their productivity and incomes.

PROBLEM
● Smallholder farmers who typically grow 2–4-hectare farms realise low yields compared to global averages.
● Post-harvest, 40% of yields are lost due to poor storage, and lack of access to markets.

SOLUTION
● Satellite based agronomy advisory
●Storage as a service plus warehouse receipt financing
●Digital commodities supply service

MARKET SIZE
TAM- $150B
64M smallholder farmers
TM-$439M
2.29M farmers
SM-$5B
22.9M farmers

BUSINESS MODEL
Kitovu leverages community based field agents to provide advisory bundled with inputs, access to markets, and storage to smallholder farmers. We charge $14.5/HA for advisory plus cost of inputs, $6/Ton for storage, and place a 13% margin on farm gate prices when we supply produce to commodity buyers.

TRACTION
● Built and launched working MVPs in the market for YieldMax, StorageX, and Eprocure
● Worked with over 16,000 smallholder farmers across 9 states of Nigeria
● Trained 357 field agents to sign farmers up to Kitovu, manage the technology, and provide agronomy advice.
● 20 person team with over $400,000 in revenue to date.
● Multiple Award Winner: Total Startupper Awards for Innovation, Nigerian Innovation Award, UNSTI Forum Award for Innovation, and World Bank Ideas for Action Award for Innovation.

LONG TERM GOALS
● Roll out Version 2 of YieldMax with risk and credit profiles and pesticide recommendation features, and StorageX to issue Warehouse receipts as smart contracts by March 2024.
● On board ~1,000 community based agents, and 50,000 farmers on the platform by March 2025.
● Roll out 50 Farmers Service Centers across 9 states of Nigeria by March 2024
● Expand to at least 2 other African countries over the next 2 years.

USE OF FUNDS
● Product Development and Research
● Increase marketing and promotion activities
● Expanding our Buy Now Pay Later Plan for smallholder farmers
● Hire staff to onboard and manage key accounts and developer to improve the product experience

FARMER ACQUISITION
● Currently targeting 200,000 smallholder farmers in Western and Northern Nigeria
● Kitovu trains commission based agents who we leverage to train and onboard farmers, while also reaching out to farmer based organisations and organising town hall meetings and demo farms.
● Farmers request for services and products through our app which is operated by the agents.
● Kitovu’s Program staff ensure that the farmers requests are met.

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION
● Kitovu reaches commodity buyers and processors through Social Media Marketing on Facebook,
Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, attendance of Industry Events and Exhibitions, and Referrals
● Kitovu’s Marketing Team focuses on business development and partnerships. .
● Our commercials team ensures that clients get supplied within 72 hours of making payments