French evergreen investment firm, Creadev, has announced a secondary investment of USD5 million in Twiga Foods, a Kenyan-based technology based B2B platform.
The global long-term investment firm is wholly funded by the Mulliez family. The Mulliez Family is one of the richest in the world with a networth of USD37.5 billion.
For Kshs500 million, the family has acquired an undisclosed stake of Twiga Foods through Creadev.
Early investors in Twiga Foods have partially sold their stake as part of a strategy to accommodate the later stage and longer-term investors.
Adolf H. Lundin Charitable Foundation, Blue Haven Ventures, Crescat Limited, Omidyar Networks, Index Ventures through Project Hand Purpose Trust, and Uqalo have all sold some of their stakes.
Twiga Foods aggregates retail demand and efficiently provides low-cost access to better quality food.
Twiga Foods investors
Early this month, Twiga Foods signed an agreement with World Bank Group member IFC to boost the company’s food safety practices.
IFC will advise the company on food safety and quality management systems in its produce handling facilities.
Other Twiga investors include DOB Equity, Wamda Capital, 1776 VC, AHL Venture Partners and Alpha Mundi.
The CEO of Twiga Foods, Peter Njonjo said, “Having Creadev join our shareholding will support our efforts towards growing our ecosystem of farmers and retailers.”
He added that it is a huge boost to their mission to deliver safe, affordable high-quality food to urban consumers, while providing reliable markets for farmers.
In a statement announcing the investment, Sarah Ngamau and Pierre Fauvet, who head Creadev’s activities in Africa, said: “We will leverage on Creadev’s international retail network and future funding capacity to support the team in executing this ambitious expansion plan and continue delivering their strong value proposition to small-holder farmers, informal retailers, and end customers”
“We are proud to enter into this long-term partnership with Twiga as they answer a massive market need: the structuration and formalization of the food logistics supply chain. We are impressed by Twiga’s fast growth, driven by an experienced and result-oriented management team,” they added.
Njonjo, who co-founded Twiga, recently joined as CEO as the company seeks to strengthen its management team.
He was until recently the President of Coca-Cola’s West and Central Africa business where he had an illustrious 21-year career.
“We believe the appointment of Mr Njonjo as CEO is another proof of Twiga’s ambitions and willingness to grow to the next level. We take the opportunity to thank Adolf H. Lundin Charitable Foundation, Blue Haven Ventures, Crescat Limited, Omydiar Networks, Index Ventures through Project Hand Purpose Trust, and Uqalo for their successful early-stage support to Twiga,” added Creadev’s team.
Economic development in the agriculture sector
On leveraging on the advantages of e-commerce, Twiga currently works with 17,000 farmers and 2,500 retailers daily. It is looking to further expand its operations within and outside Kenya.
Founded in 2014, Twiga Foods pulls on the benefits of e-commerce using technology to aggregate the requirements of informal retailers.
This is achieved through its m-commerce platform leveraging it to efficiently source produce directly from farmers and food manufacturers.
In turn, this helps improve economic development, especially in the agriculture sector.
By doing so, Twiga has created a more transparent and efficient supply chain, delivering the product directly to the retailers and reducing post-harvest losses on fresh produce.
Farmers have easier and more predictable access to the market. By enabling them to increase their revenues, farming in Kenya becomes a viable commercial venture.
On the other hand, while retailers use the m-Commerce platform to easily order high-quality food products which are delivered directly at their shops, end-customers get access to higher quality and safer food at cheaper prices.
Twiga Foods is a business to business food distribution company that builds fair and reliable markets for agricultural producers and retailers.
The company uses a platform where mobile technology, a network of food producers, pack houses and vehicles come together to supply and deliver a variety of produce directly from farmers to urban retailers.
Creadev was launched in 2002 with offices in Paris, Shanghai, New York and Nairobi.
It is involved in 16 companies with over 85,000 employees and has invested €1bn at different stages of companies, from venture capital to growth equity and buyout.
The company states on its website, “We invest with passionate entrepreneurs who develop and mobilize the talents of their teams to seek powerful impact on their ecosystems. We look to invest in and support companies able to scale-up and become worldwide best players in their sector.”
Twiga Foods is one of the best-funded startups on the continent. In its Series A funding round in 2017, the company secured USD10.3 million and a further USD10 million funding in November last year.